PERSPECTIVE 101

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  I came across an article that talked about perspective that I'd like to share with all of you. I believe the person who wrote the piece was someone named Martina Cecilia and she has a blog named Electicalice.tumblr.com Its a great site I highly recommend it :) 

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     Perspective was one of the first things Davinci would make his students learn. I believe he made them learn it before he introduced them to proportions!
      A lot of people think perspective is very difficult but little do they know perspective can be easy if you know a few rules. If this is your first time hearing the word perspective. It means 'point of view.' It's when an artist can draw objects and you can tell exactly how far, tall, and big they are.
      When I first was learning how to draw in perspective in elementary school it made me feel as if I was creating a window into another world. That feeling is a great one and I hope that this post can help you feel the same if you just starting to learn how to draw. 

Have your lines reach a vanishing point

     This is the most important rule to know.. Notice in the image that all the yellow lines all go to one point (the vanishing point). Always make your lines go to the same point. Notice how the red line does not go to the same point as the yellow lines. Its an awkward line and it's wrong.

"But DANNY, its such a minor mistake, the image looks fine to me!"
- True, the red line's mistake is a very subtle one, but drawing is all about the details. The more effort you put in double checking your work, the greater the quality will be. People will notice the time you put into your work, they might not be able to tell you why your work looks better but they will FEEL it. So grab a ruler and always check your perspective.

LOOK! Even the little details such as doors still follow the Yellow lines...

      When more than one line isn't following the rule and doesn't line up with the vanishing point, things can start to look confusing. There are times when you have to draw something that makes you break this rule, it's rare but it does happen. But 9 out of 10 times, You need to follow the vanishing point rule. 

The red lines do not go to the vanishing point

Objects look smaller the farther away they are
     Look at these two images of 'buildings'. The second image feels correct bc the closer to the vanishing point the building is, the thinner it gets. 

-"Danny, how do I know how thin to make the building, should I guess?"
      No, there is also a rule on how thin/smaller to make an object the closer it gets to the vanishing point. This one seems complicated but if you do it once, you can do it all the time. Make sure you use a ruler! 

Lets say you are drawing columns - set up your vanishing points and draw your first two columns how ever you want. 

Look at the 3 Horizontal pink lines. The most important one is the Pink Line that goes through the middle and cuts the columns in half. 

Draw a diagonal through one of the squares (RED LINE)

At the end of the red line, you will draw a new column!!

Keep drawing diagonals (RED LINES) to draw as many columns as you like!

Now you can use this rule as a guide to correctly draw columns perspective.

TIP: The closer the object is to the viewer, the thicker the line should be

      This is not a rule, this is just a tip that can help add depth to your drawing! If you have ever seen some mountains that were far away, do you ever notice the ones further away are harder to see? You should do the same to your lines in your drawings! If nature does it, you can do it too. You can even start to leave lines out when they start getting too close to each other. Simplify when you can without breaking the rules :) 

lines are all dark...

Far away lines are lighter :) 

Don't be lazy! Find reference and use it to make your drawings better!
       Take this window for example! The quality is in the details :) It'll bring realism to your drawings.

     Last but not least, remember perspective applies to people as well. A lot of people will draw figures and not CHECK to see if they are the right size when compared to the other objects in the drawing. Grab your ruler and never forget to check your drawings :)

     I hope this helps you out. I know the internet is a big place and it's hard to find good advice. That's why I sometimes post things I find from other sites here for you to read. Remember, I didn't invent perspective, so my way isn't the right way or the only way. All I do is share what I know. Drawing is fun and it shouldn't be hard, if perspective is really difficult for you, keep practicing and don't be afraid to ask people for help.

(source)

Drawing 101: Training Your Eye

"There are two ways of thinking about painting, how     not to do it and how to do it; how to do it -- with much drawing and little color; how not to do it -- with much color and little drawing." 

(Letter to Theo van Gogh, April 1882)

      No matter what style you might draw/paint in, it is essential to at least know how to depict things with accurately. The foundation of being able to do so, is knowing how to judge proportions. When I judge proportions while life drawing, I try don't rely too much on my background knowledge of anatomy. I try to judge and draw with what my eye sees instead. Learn how to OBSERVE! Things I might say to myself while I draw, "Well from this angle the head is half the length or her thigh.. her right thigh is parallel to her left arm, and it looks like her head also lines up with her left arm but it obviously doesn't have the same angle as her right thigh. Therefore her head has an angle of its own I have to reflect in my drawing." etc etc... (notice how I talk about parts and not the body as a whole.. You must learn to see and draw the parts that make the 'whole'. You use the 'whole' to guide the over all direction of the smaller parts it consists of so that they exist and look as one.)  

      Looking at a model, a building, an object with this mindset/perspective is not easy. Its a very technical way of looking at your subject in order to get an accurate drawing. Thats why life drawing WITH a teacher is always more beneficial to you than drawing alone because they point out where your eye is weak in observing the subject. The teacher guides you. 

      When I was in high school we didn't have classes like I had in college. So I had to find my own way to improve and start training my eyes. The easiest way to start training your eyes to start learning how to line things up and see the PARTS of your subject instead. Using a grid is a simple example of using lines to guide your drawing. Soon with enough training you will be able to use the same technique with out any visual aids. But if you are just starting to learn how to draw, stick with a grid until you can use it to draw your pictures very accurately. 

      - To use a grid, you grab a picture and draw a grid over it. how many lines the grid has is up to you. But make sure that the grid on your drawing paper is pretty much exactly the same!

 - Then start section by section. Look at the parts that make the whole and draw the shapes they make and not the subject. Look for negative and positive shapes (if you do not know what I mean USE GOOGLE.. you have all of mankind's knowledge at your fingertips. start tapping into it by googling something for yourself. you'll be glad you did.)

Here, the Helen South (awesome tutorial instructor) started to cover parts of the picture so that they could focus on a section of the drawing. 

Remember I mentioned something about positive and negative shapes? on the right hand side: the negative shape is shaded in. You can think of a negative shape as: the space that your subject does not occupy. Notice where the edge of the jug crosses the grid line (is that half way? 1/3? 1/4th?? ) and make sure that your drawing does the same.

      When I was younger I would love to use the grid to draw some of my favorite characters and pictures. Always keep in mind: copying is not the goal! Training your eye is! As soon as you are good at using the grid to replicate drawings, then its time to move on to other techniques such as life drawing and depicting things that are in front of you. To many people get comfortable  and content with themselves in being able to copy very realistically. but when you ask them to draw a face from real life.. they are unable to. This is because copying only deals with LINES not FORM. One must learn to draw things with volume and form. You can not learn this from just copying flat pictures. This is why its important to move on and to not become content with being able to just copy. Your imagination dies when you get stuck copying. 

      I drew this in high-school using a grid on a 3in X 6in magazine photo. 

   This is the first post of a 3. Next will be a little more about whats the next step to do to develop your eye. I hope this post helped out any readers who need the help! And for those who are just curious, I hope it gave you insight into a perspective you might not be familiar with. Happy drawing. 

Thanks for reading,  -Danny

The Graph Editor...

         To you Animators who are still wrestling with the computer while trying to learn bigger concepts of animation such as acting: Here is this link of a nice lecture by my good friend Victor Navone. So if you feel your understanding of the graph editor (what we use to animate things on the computer) is not quite there, check out these old lectures I dug up from the past that are very much valid today.


http://www.navone.org/HTML/Tutorial_Splines1.htm

http://www.navone.org/HTML/Tutorial_Splines2.htm


To the newbs out there. Remember one thing:
       That these tutorials show you how to move things. this is not animation. Animation is more than movement. It's a combination of movements that work so well together, that if you would translate all the movement on screen into sound, a symphony should come out. rhythm, texture, and an overall composition is part of the answer. These lectures only show you 'notes', not how to put the notes together to make 'visual music'.

Hope this helps.