These sketches follow prompt 21.
Week 6
Project 4 – Interior Perspective
My drawing for Project 4 is of my apartment bedroom. I probably spend most of my time sitting here, either working at my computer or practicing piano, a hobby of mine. I sat in a small camp chair while drawing this, so my viewpoint is only slightly above the desk surface, which, in reality, doesn’t come up to my waist. Because of my low vantage point, the view outside my window is exclusively sky.
One point of trouble I encountered when drawing was that my vanishing points where in suboptimal positions.
Ultimately, I had to tape four pages together to capture them. This forced me to use the two pages joined lengthwise shown in the setup picture above to correctly align edges to the vanishing points. It proved to be a hassle, but I’m satisfied with the image it produced.
Homework 6 – Perspective Readings and Videos
What follows is a short list of takeaways from the readings and videos on perspective:
There are many more types of perspective than originally discussed in class.
Four point perspective exists when a scene that typically would be drawn in three-point perspective has components both above and below the horizon line, requiring an extra vertical vanishing point to accurately draw.
Photo perspective accounts for warp created by camera lenses.
Perceptive perspective reduces scene distortion by using bent lines, although I’m not entirely sure of the need for this method.
Arial perspective is different than the previously mentioned forms of perspective. Rather than using geometry to imply depth, arial perspective employs color shifts. For example, as an object moves further away, its tone tends to shift towards blue, it loses contrast and resolution, and it generally seems to become hazier. Think rows of mountains receding into the distance. Air molecules distort more light from further away peaks, allowing the human eye to perceive depth.
One video mentioned that reverse perspective, in which the vanishing points come towards the viewer rather than away, is truer to how people actually see. I did not understand this point; it seems to me that traditional perspective is more inline with how I process depth. This may be interesting to explore further.
The way fine arts masters draw in perspective is inconsistent. One well-defined, consistent set of rules cannot capture the myriad ways to view perspective. Artists use many tricks, including curved vanishing lines and multiple vanishing points, even in one-point perspective. Learning to draw well in perspective is no mean feat!