An Iinterruption

Taking a break from the exercise that we are in the middle of, I would like to post a couple of drawings that I did this morning.





These drawings were made with a kind of charcoal called vine charcoal. It is very lightweight, compared with regular compressed charcoal. It is very easy to sketch something, wipe it away and keep drawing and is also excellent when used in conjunction with other media. You can more easily achieve lighter shades of gray than you can with regular charcoal, but it is also hard to keep a finished project in good condition without using a fixative (or impossible).

Real Life Vanishing Point

For the next perspective exercise, we will do a real life vanishing point. I gave some examples last time of some real instances of vanishing point: a road going off in the distance with telephone poles on either side, a railroad, etc.
These are perfect examples, given that they go straight out in front of you.

So, give it a try. One realistic vanishing point, coming up.

First Perspective Exercise, Complete

Here is the completed example drawing for our first lesson in perspective drawing. (Yes, I folded it to get the shapes in the right spots.)


We want to give the illusion that the shapes are going into the distance, not just a bunch of different sized shapes sitting next to each other.

I neglected to mention that as objects are farther away, in addition to appearing smaller, they also seem to be closer together. This is quite noticeable while looking at telephone poles going into the distance.

There is quite a bit more about perspective to learn, but this is a good start.