Notes on Perspective Classes

As you know, I taught perspective in my last course at Madeline Island, this past summer. I've been reflecting on my experience and here are some notes:

• Most people seemed to understand the main concepts of perspective, but a few struggled with the idea of projecting a scene onto a picture plane. Interestingly, even among those who struggled, some completed the classroom exercises correctly - likely because they were following the script or formula I had just given them, rather than fully grasping the concept;

• It was an especially good idea to emphasize: eye level, the line of sight, and the picture plane;

• The ‘colored box’ helped A LOT!

• Lifting and showing my drawing while working on the demos proved to be both important and necessary;

• The placement of the vanishing points, as well as the distance between them, seemed to be a particularly challenging issue;

• It is essential to emphasize that lines are either horizontal, vertical, or receding toward the vanishing points. Some people forget this and ended up drawing lines that head off to strange, random places onto the page. This problem seems to come from a confusion between the picture plane and the observer’s position, as if the observer sees both the drawing and the scene from above (however, this is just a speculation from my part)

Toned paper as a foundation for atmospheric drawings

It hasn’t been very long since I started using toned paper in my urban sketching. I must say, I regret not trying it sooner! It’s just incredible how toned paper can turn any drawing into something much more appealing. I also think it makes the process a little faster, since the middle value is already set — all you have to do is add the darks and the lights.

Well, of course, it’s not that simple 😆. You can easily spend a lot of time building up layer after layer of graphite (or another medium) without really getting anywhere. But once you add the white, the light pops and the full range of values is established. However — there’s always a however — if you bring in the white too soon, it will just get dirty.

As I developed some skills in creating atmospheric drawings with graphite, I thought it would be a good idea to bring this approach to the workshop as well, this time on toned paper. 

To introduce this stage of the workshop, I talked about how artists can develop a deeper level of sophistication by nurturing their sensibility. By “sophistication,” I don’t mean simply refining technique — it’s about adding layers of meaning to your work. To illustrate this, I brought up the American artist Andrew Wyeth, whose works expresses this very idea.