Hello everyone! To all the artists out there, has anyone read through the book written by Betty Edwards called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain? The book is excellent but dry and I can't seem to wrap my fried brain around the perspective chapter. Anybody else in the same boat? They describe the perspective/proportion as "sighting" which is seeing. To find the "basic unit" to start your drawing and measure in ratio. I must be fried that I can't seem to figure out how to get my measurement in air with my pencil and somehow bring that down to paper? Am I losing it or just having a block? I really want to get this so I can move on in my drawings.

Any help on this would be awesome!!!!

Thank you!!!

I have read that, and about 50 others on the subject, I think reading about perspective is mind boggling..and boring I just went thru two members/teachers here at drawspace and have a much better clue than i ever have, so why dont you join in on the perspective thread and perhaps you will find the help you need there, I am telling you, I have been years at least 5 of em, reading and trying to apply, I really started to feel as though there was something wrong with me (well, there is but that is beside the point)

I think you might be missing the point a little. If you look at a building and decide to draw it, you can use your pencil to work out the proportions of the building. That doesn't mean you have to use the measurements of your pencil. i.e. If you hold up your pencil and sight the side of a window, like this.

Click to view attachment

Then sight it across the window, you might work out that the window is twice as high as it is wide! So on your picture, you could use a ruler and draw a window 2" high by 1" wide.

In the next example, the the right side of the house (from this perspective) is two thirds the height, and the left hand side is one third the height. So you could draw this on your paper as a house 6" high x 4" wide to the right and 2" wide to the left of the main corner. So the actuall building is as high as it is wide.

Click to view attachment

So the idea of using your pencil is to judge the proportions not to actually use it a a measurement.

Hope this helps.

You're funny. Thanks for the tip! I hear you on the boring factor! Perspective is very left-brained and mathematical. As a more beginner artist I feel like I should know all aspects of drawing but the perspective is one I don't gravitate toward. When you say the perspective threads what do you mean by this?

And no there is nothing wrong with you

Thanks Steve for your help. I guess I get paranoid if I am not doing something exactly as an artist has instructed and so she never mentions bringing a ruler into the whole exercise. So I wasn't sure if I was supposed to eyeball it and make crooked lines? I used my pencil and got that measurement for the distance but still it wasn't all sinking in. Why do I have a negative view on using a ruler I realize? I don't know why that is. Maybe that is part of my problem.

Thanks again for your time and sketches!

What makes you think Steve and I have finished with you yet?

There's a lot more I'm sure we can show you on perspective, yet - but the way to do it is slowly, gently, one step at a time


Dave

What's being described here is proportional measurement really, rather than perspective - and as usual Steve's described it very well, and clearly.

One thing I'd like to emphasise about proportional measurement is the idea that you are working from one consistent position (people standing up at easels will even mark the position of their feet on the floor, with bits of tape, to make sure they're viewing things from the same place) - and that you are holding the pencil out at arm's length (so that different lengths are all consistent with each other - you're not estimating different things with the pencil at different distances from your eyes.

Also - think of the scene in front of you as having a big sheet of glass between you and it (like looking through a shop window) at the position of your outstretched arm - the pencil needs to be parallel to that - as if it was placed flat against it. (so that you're not pointing the pencil into or out of the scene - but parallel to it as if it was already a flat picture).

You can also use the pencil, not only to compare heights and widths of objects, but also their angles by just lining up the pencil along edges, to get a feel for the angle something's at - the edge of a roof, or the slope of a shoulder, for example

Dave

well, you guys have moved a mountain this week believe me, I know there is still so much more, I am eager to get some more practice on what I have learned already, and then to try to apply it to my watercolors, this barrier has frustrated me for so long. I feel as though I finally can make some sense of it,. As I said before, My greatest lament is not knowing anyone I can draw and learn with, no one even uses pencils around me for anything that I am aware of.
So drawspace has been my home this past year..
I shall be sure to look you up when I do my very first show in london,

(Sorry for the string of replies here, but I thought it better to split separate points into different posts, for clarity)



Perspective is somewhat dry, its true - but it is a very powerful tool, and one of the central techniques needed to create things that look realistic and convincing. Having even a basic idea of it puts you at a huge advantage as compared with not understanding it.

These threads contain good discussions of perspective - all three are worth reading slowly and carefully - Steve, Jeanette, Ernest and I cover a great deal of ground in them - we really present just about everything you could possibly need to know about perspective, in ways that hopefully make sense within the discussions:
http://www.drawspace.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=27815
http://www.drawspace.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=27913
http://www.drawspace.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=5454 (on page 3 of that, I get into some pretty advanced stuff in my later post, but don't let that frighten you off - what I show there is a method that used to be used by architects that enables you to do perspective construction of just about anything - but its for general info/completeness only, I'm not suggesting everyone has to master that )




A lot of people (including, alas, many artists who "teach") have romantic delusions/fantasies about doing things in certain "artistic" ways (which are usually crazy self-imposed limitations). Learning to draw and paint is difficult enough already, there's no need to make it even more difficult by constraining yourself to ways that the uninformed think its done by real pros, rather than how its actually done.

I'll tell you a couple of artistic secrets:

Artistic secret number 1
the best artists use every tool, trick, and technique at their disposal to achieve the best result they can. They don't work with one arm tied behind their backs, rejecting resources that they could use to make a more effective painting/drawing.

To do perspective, you need to use a ruler (or similar straight-edge) - and anybody who tells you that this is "inartistic" doesn't know what they are talking about and can be safely ignored .

Artistic secret number 2
If you are frightened that using rulers and so on will make your work look "mechanical", then fear not - another big artistic secret is doing a pre-drawing. So what, you may ask, do I mean by a pre-drawing?

Another of the big "romantic fantasies" that people have, is that "proper artists" can do line-drawing where they put down all the lines perfectly, straight-off - and that, furthermore is the only way to do it - anything else is "inartistic", or "cheating". Nonsense.

Basically there are two stages to executing any drawing - the first is to achieve correct proportions/placements - and the second is to shade/render to show the 3D form of the object by how light and shade fall across it.

The first of these stages is often (nay, usually) skipped over - but its actually, I'd suggest, harder than rendering - the result being that "wonky" drawings are commonplace.

Instead of thinking that "proper artists" somehow magically get placement correct - and that other people "cannot draw" (implying that they don't have that magic gift/talent, and are doomed to forever produce wonky drawings) - you will get a lot further, faster, by realising that it is allowed to set up your proportions and placement first - by doing a rough, light drawing (and even by using such infernal tools of Satan himself, such as erasers, or tracing paper), and refining that until you are confident that things are in the right places, and are the right size relative to each other - and then using that construction drawing as the basis of your "drawing proper".

As my first witness for the defence, I'd like to call to the stand Jacob Collins. Jacob is one of the foremost classical realist artists of today. If you are not familiar with his work, check out his website:

http://www.jacobcollinspaintings.com/

So, now we've established his credentials, have a look at this drawing demo:

http://www.artistsnetwork.com/article/figure-drawing-demo

see particularly his stages 1 to 4 - and note he's prepared to spend quite a bit of time on the construction stage to get it right, first finding overall angles, lengths and proportions, and then finding and plotting out the shapes of the edges of shadows across the figure.

Once these have been done, then the freehand drawing is done using that as its basis.


Dave

Thanks Dave! It is good to hear that mom was absolutely dead wrong!

lmao!

LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT!!! Thank you for this insight. I agree with what you are saying and I love the artistic secrets. This is was great.