Help neded in understanding Perceptive

[C.K.X]

Hi,

I have just began to learn how to draw with this site, and I have came into difficulties with the most basic of it -- perceptive.

I have a couple of questions about this subject:

-Is the vanishing point fixed for a picture,
or does it changes for every separate object
you draw on the paper?

-What determine where the vanishing points
shall be? If the position of the vanishing
points is dependent on the the object
that I draw, then how am I going to draw
the object in without the aid of the
vanishing point? Which bring me to...

-How to you really draw in perceptive?
In the "Learn to Draw" course, in lesson 2,
I notice all the boxes, as they get lower
and lower below the eye level, more and more
of the top is exposed. I wondered why that
is so, and I thought that it is due to the
angle of length and width lines from the
vertical height line.

Now my problem is this: no matter at
whaever eye level I see a box, the angles
of these lines remain the same, yet more
of the top is exposed. When I try to
draw a box at eye level, I will naturally
draw the lines at the angle that I
observed, which is the same throughout
no matter how low the box is below my
eye level. Hence, I could not even
draw the box at eye level for I always
end up with an isometric drawing.
(I have been drawing isometric drawings for
quite some time...)

So, if the vanishing points is determinded
by the object I draw, then why shall I
care about vanishing points? But if on the
other hand, if the vanishing points
determineded the object, then who is
drawing? And if the vanishing point is not
an aid to help me in drawing the object,
then how do I really draw in perceptive?

I be very thankful if anyone could help me
out...

[Drew Davis]

The vanishing point (or points, for multipoint forms of perspective) is fixed for a given picture. Everything in the picture shares the same vanishing point. (You can get weird M.C. Esher sorts of effects if you pick several vanishing points, and use different ones for different objects -- or parts of one object -- in the same picture. That may even be what you want.)

The artist (you!) selects the type of perspective and the location of the vanishing points as part of the composition. The choice depends on what
sort of look you're going for.

As for seeing the tops of boxes, the steeper you look down on such a thing, the bigger (deeper) the top will look. If you're looking flat along the top, you can't see it at all. If you're looking straight down at it, it looks square. Anything in between, and the depth is foreshortened due to the viewing angle. Try a few real boxes at home, and just look at them. Don't think of them as square boxes, because they won't really look that way, though your brain is trained to interpret the perspective effect as "square". Just look at them. Hold up your pencil, or a ruler, and measure the apparent lengths of the sides from a distance. Perspective is just the geometry of viewing angles.

[C.K.X]

Let me see if I get it right...

I took your suggestions and really look at what I see, not at what ought to be.

When the box is my at my eye level, the vertical line closest to me is slightly higher than the vertical line furthest away from me. As the box moves lower, the vertical line closest to my eye get shorter, hence exposing more of the top, till at last both vertical lines are parallel, resulting in an isometric drawing...

Am I right?

[Roger E]

C.K.X,
Try taking a look at lesson #7 in my basic drawing course, "The Horizon Line". I hope this will help you to get a handle on perspective. Remember that the reason most people have trouble with perspective is because we know "too much" about the object. Clear your mind and draw only what you see, not what you "think" is correct. Good luck,
Roger Elliot

[anitaarts]

Just a suggetion..Check out Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards.IT will help you see things better,so that you can draw better.Excellent book.Has proven to be a classic .

[dponder]

C.K.X.
I believe I can help you with perspective, but it would be difficult to do here because it would take some graphic illustrations to make the process clear. If you are already familiar with isometric drawing then this method would come easily to you. You can get in touch with me through any of the means listed in my profile.
Don

[bruin70]

the vanishing point is on the horizon line. the horizon line is imaginary, as in a room,,,,you don't see it,,,,or real, as in looking down a road in nebraska. the horizon line's height is YOUR EYE LEVEL. so if you are 6 feet tall, the horizon line is 6 feet. if your 20 ft high, the horizon line is 20 ft......THAT TO SAY, at a 6 ft horizon line,,,anything else on the picture plane that is 6 ft will top off at the horizon line. anything taller or shorter will top off proportionately above or below the horizon line. there is ONLY ONE eye level, yours, and therefore one horizon line in a picture.......milt

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"he who thinks he know all and knows nothing is king in a kingdom of one,,,,,or a critic" - the kobe

[This message has been edited by bruin70 (edited 09-10-99).]

[This message has been edited by bruin70 (edited 09-10-99).]

[bruin70]

i'll answer one by one over time...drew is mistaken. the vanishing point is NOT ONE fixed point on a horizon line, unless the picture is of a row of structured elements, lined up parallel to each other....like buildings. or crates stacked in aisles in a warehouse. they all share the same vanishing point because they're all lined up. their tops and bottoms( which run parallel to the horizontal ground) is all you should concern yourself with for now. in the case of the crates; if you take one crate and pull it from its place, dropping it randomly, it now has a different vanishing point than all the other crates because it no longer aligns with the other crates. it has its own VP. and as i said,,,all the other crates share the same VP because they all line up to each other. the random crate's vanishing points are wherever its top and bottom horizontal lines converge at the horizon line. AND ALL VANISHING POINTS CONVERGE SOMEWHERE ON THE SAME HORIZON LINE. there is only one horizon line in a picture plane. there are actually three vanishing points but don't worry about the third one.....milt

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"he who thinks he know all and knows nothing is king in a kingdom of one,,,,,or a critic" - the kobe



[This message has been edited by bruin70 (edited 09-28-99).]

[bruin70]

Your second question…the vanishing point does depend upon your object. Vanishing points merely line up the tops and bottoms of your box. Where a vanishing point comes in handy is if you add another box, facing the same direction, that the second box will have the same vanishing point as the first. once you draw your box on the picture plane, and it can be ANYWHERE, it is now up to you to use its vanishing points to line up the top and bottoms. in a photoraph, the VP's are automatically there. This is not as complicated as you make it to be….do this ,,,get a box and put it anywhere. Get a camera with a very wide angle lens and shoot the box close up. The top and bottoms of the box automatically converge to a vanishing point. If you draw two imaginary lines extending the top and bottom of the box, the two lines will converge, meeting at a vanishing point. But what is a vanishing point. It is an imaginary point on the horizon where parallel lines meet. Take railroad tracks on a flat nebraska plain. The two tracks are parallel,,,they never meet,,, but as you look at them , they SEEM to converge at a point on the horizon. That is their vanishing point. It is because distance causes things to get smaller that the two tracks 6 ft apart near you , look to be touching five miles away. If you didn't use a vanishing point to draw the tracks, the rails would not meet in your drawing and the feeling of distance would not be present. It is this same rule that you use to justify the properties of a box.

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"he who thinks he know all and knows nothing is king in a kingdom of one,,,,,or a critic" - the kobe



[This message has been edited by bruin70 (edited 09-28-99).]

[bruin70]

third question,,,If your eye level is 6 ft, then anything shorter, you will see the top of. The shorter the box, the more you see the top of. Anything 6 ft tall will be at your eye level ,,,you won't be able to look down at it's top.


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"he who thinks he know all and knows nothing is king in a kingdom of one,,,,,or a critic" - the kobe

[bruin70]

i can't even figure out your next question. but as for your experience with isometric drawings. isometric drawings have no vanishing point,,,they're just schematics. so you can see how they would not rest well in a painting. since its horizontals don't converge , an isometric box wouldn't have "distance". the exact opposite example of an isometric box would be an architectural interior/exterior,,,where the convergence to vanishing points is extreme.

[This message has been edited by bruin70 (edited 09-10-99).]

[bruin70]

objects determine the VP. the VP helps to align everything on that object. (you have a box,,,you find the VP...you want to put windows in the box... use the VP to align those windows.)the VP helps to align any other object you place in the picture plane that is aligned with the first object.(you have a box,,,you find the VP. you place another box in the picture plane that you want to line up( face the same direction) with the first box. that is, both boxes' top and bottom edges are parallel. use the same VP to properly align the second box)

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"he who thinks he know all and knows nothing is king in a kingdom of one,,,,,or a critic" - the kobe

[This message has been edited by bruin70 (edited 09-10-99).]

[bruin70]

unless you're going to do buildings and boxes or some extreme perspective involving parallel lines, you won't really need to use linear perpective. however you will use height perspective a lot. that is,,, placing obects of different heights in different depths of your picture plane and making them look like they're on the same ground and are the proper size in relation to each other. this, you should get a book on because this DOES need diagramming

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"he who thinks he know all and knows nothing is king in a kingdom of one,,,,,or a critic" - the kobe

[kate]

I too am having trouble with perspective. My art teacher has shown us how to do the boxes and I understand how this works, but now we are asked to apply this to a chair on top of a table, the vps go off the paper and I must be stupid but I cant understand how to approach this. Could someone help...please?

[bruin70]

kate,,,perspective is real hard to explain . a pic is truly worth a thousand words. go over what i wrote to ckx. as far as VP's off the paper,,,there are drafting instruments that do this, but once you're used to it, it's better to eyeball it.....and for the chair on the table,,,don't let the legs fool you. just place a small box on top of a large box. where all the points/corners etc on the table and chair correspond to an edge /corner/point on their respective box. example, the two top/back corners of the box=the two corners on the chair's back. and the four corners of the box's bottom= the four bottoms of the chair legs....milt

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"he who thinks he know all and knows nothing is king in a kingdom of one,,,,,or a critic" - the kobe

[anita Stewart]

Here's a little note from one who has taught perspective for many years and uses chairs and stools all the time for " models".. It helps if you can break the chair up into planes...planes such as ..If you were doing a simple stool..You have to take into consideration the top of the stool,the sides of the seat,the bottom of the legs are on a plane, check if the dowels on the legs line up: are they on the saem plane?..the sides of the stool legs would also be on different planes..I have also seen artists take an object that is full of curved surfaces and box it in ,to give it flat planes..It's like imagining a rounded organic sculpture "put back into a piece of wood"..Like putting the carving process into reverse,taking it back to a square or rectangle shaped piece of wood. I hope this helps..

[Roger E]

Everyone!!
I have just begun an entire series on just this subject. I am including perspective from two different positions. One from the somewhat arduous needs of the commercial and industrial artists/draftsman and also one for the fine arts or the freehand prospective. I hope these will help.
Perspective is really a very simple science. It is the complexity of the subject matter that is most likely to create problems. However, without a thorough understanding of the picture plane, it is nearly impossible to grasp perspective fully. Hope the series will help. Look for it in the ArtSchool OnLine section.
Roger