the delphic expanse

Assignment #5 -- Perspective in a New Mode

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Assignment #5 -- Perspective in a New Mode

Postby Misplaced » Tue Nov 09, 2010 3:14 pm

From the book (1979 edition):

Learning to draw in perspective requires the same skill we've been learning: to see things as they are out there in the external world... We must put aside our prejudgments, our stored and memorized stereotypes and habits of thinking. We must overcome false interpretations, which are often based on what we think must be out there even though we may never have taken a really clear look at what is right in front of our eyes...

Traditional Renaissance perspective conforms most closely to the way people in our Western culture perceive objects in space. In our perceptions, parallel lines appear to converge at vanishing points on a horizon line (the viewer's eye level) and forms appear to become smaller as the distance from the viewer increases. For this reason, realistic drawing depends heavily on these principles. The Durer etching (below) illustrates this perceptual system.

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The system worked beautifully and solved the problem of how to create an illusion of deep space on a flat surface -- of recreating the visible world. Durer's simple device evolved into a complicated mathematical system, enabling artists from the Renaissance onward to overcome their mental resistance to optical distortions of the true shapes of things and to draw realistically.



Now, the author mentions that Durer's system is not without flaws, namely that it is very left-brained. However she does have an exercise in this chapter using it... So we're going to do it.

A MODERN VERSION OF THE DURER'S DEVICE

1. Tear off a sheet of clear plastic of the type used for wrapping food (Saran Wrap or generic imitations). Smooth it onto a window that looks out on a street scene. using a felt-tip marker, draw a grid on the plastic with lines about two inches apart.

2. Standing at arm's length from the window, close one eye and regard the scene from a single point of view -- do not move your head. Now, with the marker, trace the outlines of the street, buildings, automobiles, trees -- the whole scene -- on the plastic sheet.

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3. Your completed drawing is a perspective drawing. Carefully removed the plastic from the window and lay it down on a light surface so that you can see the lines clearly. Take a sheet of drawing paper and very lightly draw a second grid exactly the same size as the first. Now copy the drawing from the plastic onto the drawing paper.

4. Take this drawing back to the same window. Now you are going to sight angles using your pencil as a sighting tool, and your drawing can function as a check on the accuracy of your sighting.

5. Stand again at arm's length from the window, in the same spot you stood to do the grid drawing. Now, holding your pencil up perfectly vertical and parallel to the window, line your pencil up with the vertical edge of a building. You will see that the edge is vertical. Check that on your drawing: the vertical edge will be parallel to the edge of your paper. In fact, all lines that are perpendicular to the earth always remain perfectly vertical.

6. Take a sight on one of the angled forms you drew -- perhaps the edge of the street or the top of a building. Let your horizontal pencil touch the form at some point.

7. Observe the angle between the pence and the form; note the direction in relation to horizontal. Now look at your drawing at the same angle and see how you drew it using Durer's method. Compare your observation and the drawing. The drawing should match your observation.

8. Now check other angles and line directions, in each case looking at your drawing to see how the observation is translated in the drawing.

From the book:

Sighting can be used to determine the relationship of lengths and widths of forms. When drawing a table viewed from an oblique angle, for example, an artist first determies angles of the edges relative to the horizontal and vertical by sighting, as seen below.

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The next perception required is how wide the table is (from this viewpoint) in relation to its length. This appearent width relative to length will vary from viewpoint to viewpoint, depending on where the viewer's eye level happens to be. (See example below)

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The technique of sighting relative follows.

1. Hodling the pencil on a plane parallel to your eyes and at arm's length, with the elbow locked to keep scale constant, measure the width of the table: place the eraser of the pencil so it coincides with one corner of the table and place your thumb at the other corner.

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2. Still keeping your elbow locked and with the pencil still parallel to your eyes, carry that measurement to the long side of the table. How long is the table, relative to its width? Let's say it is one-and-a-quarter widths.

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3. On the angled lines you ahve drawn, make a mark for the width (this is an arbitrary width -- you decide how wid you want to draw the table). the length, however, is relative to the width. Make a mark on the angled line and draw the table top.

4. Next, you will take a sight on the table legs by holding your pencil vertically, taking note of the angle of one leg relative to the vertical. Are the table legs perfectly vertical or are they at an angle. Draw the leg closest to you.

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You can take a sight on the length of the leges relatively (again) to the width. By holding your pencil horizontally so that it coincides with the top of the leg closest to you, you can place the tips of the other legs, again by sighting angles.

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Practice sighting relative sizes at odd moments of the day. The key to the technique is shutting off your verbal, L-mode knowledge of actual size relationships. For example, from certain viewpoints you may sight a width-length relationship for a table that you feel positive can't be right: perhaps you sight a relationship of one to ten.

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Your verbal knowledge informs you that the table is certainly not that long and narrow. But one to ten is the perceptual relationship, and that's how you must draw it. You must believe what you see, and draw your perceptions without changing or revising them to fit your verbal knowledge. Then, paradoxically, the table will appear to be the width you know it to be.



Last exercise (aside from the supplimentary ones, of course).

PERSPECTIVE SKILLS IN R-MODE: CORNERS

Before you begin: Read all of the directions and look at the drawings in the Student Showing (posted below the exercise) before you start your perspective drawing. Be sure that you have ample time, about half an hour, to complete the drawing.

1. Position yourself so that you are facing a corner of a room.

2. Use your viewfinder (that we made in the last assignment) to frame the corner, adjusting the viewfinder backward or forward to include whatever you wish to include in your drawing.

3. Imagine your perception of the corner on your paper, seeing the view almost as though it were already drawn on paper. Remind yourself that the edges of your paper represent the constrants -- vertican and horizontal.

4. Take a sight first on the upper corner of the room: holding your pencil by the fingertips of both hands, extend both arms out full length. You are using both hands as shown in the example below to make sure that the pencil says on the plane parallel to the plane of your eyes.

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The most frequent mistake students make in sighting is to extend the pencil outward parallel to the angle they are sighting, pointing away from the plane parallel to eyes. If it helps, imagine a window pane at arms length, just like the one you drew the street scene on, an dkeep your pencil parallel to that plane. With the pencil extended at a perfect horizontal, move it up or down slightly until it seems to touch the upper corner, where the ceiling meets the walls as in the example above. You should now be able to see the angles in relation to the horizontal of the upper edges of the two walls.

5. Draw those two angles and the vertical line of the corner as in the next example below. (The corner, of course, is vertical because it is a line perpendicular to the earth's surface and these lines always remain perfectly vertical. Only the horizontal lines -- that is, lines parallel to the earth's surface -- change angles in perspective.

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6. Working your way down the walls, check every angle relative to vertical and horizontal of moldings, pictures on walls, doorways, etc.

7. Using the technique of sighting relative widths and lengths in addition to sighting angles, draw the forms of shelves, cabinets, charirs, or other furnitture that may be in the corner. Use negative space wherever possible, always shifting from to the next adjacent form or space. Try not to think in words at all in order to ensure a strong cognitive shift to R-mode.

Student Showing

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Supplimentary Exercises

Before you begin: Practice perceiving foreshortened forms by extending the fingers of one hand straight toward your eyes. Focus on one fingernail and wait until you cansee it as a shape (close one eye to flatten the image).

1. Draw the fingernail, then the finger. Then draw the adjacent fingers, thumb, hand. Use negative space and sight the angles of the parts of your hand relative to vertical and horizontal.

2. Put three objects of the same size on the table -- for example, three apples. Place one apple on the edge of the table, on e in the middle and one at the far edge. Sight the relative sizes, then draw the objects.

3. Below is a drawing by Charles White ("Preacher") which demonstrates a foreshortened view. Study it. Copy it. Turning the drawing upside down if necessary. Each time you experience the fact that drawing just what you see works the wonder of creating the illusion of space and volume on the flat surface of the paper, the methods will become more securely integrated as your way of seeing -- the artist's way of seeing.

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Enjoy!
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Postby Reanok » Sat Nov 13, 2010 7:17 am

:? I tried to do the perspective drawing lesson.I did the drawing with the grid on paper to draw a house since I didn't have saran wrap and magic markers it looks like a house but I'm not very satisfied the way it turned.Learning from our drawing mistakes and improving are skills is what counts.
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Postby Reanok » Mon Nov 15, 2010 7:32 am

I've tried to work on some of the lesson over the weekend. I was wondering what's going to be in the next lesson.Is it drawing a profile portrait described in the new book?
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Postby Misplaced » Mon Nov 15, 2010 11:07 am

I'm going to start working on putting that together.

Myself, I think I'll be doing my own assignments when NaNo is over. It's just insane to write a novel in a month. LOL
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