DRAWING WITH PERSPECTIVE: A COUNTRY HOME IN 2-POINT PERSPECTIVE

DRAWING A HOUSE FROM IMAGINATION IN TWO-POINT PERSPECTIVE

Let’s try to draw an imaginary country home using the concepts of two-point perspective.  Here are the steps I used:

1.  On a large *18 x 24″) sheet of drawing paper, draw a horizon line and select two vanishing points as far away on the page as you can.  Then draw the front corner of the house approximately 2″ tall.   Draw vanishing lines from the top and bottom of this line to the vanishing points on the left and the right.
2. Your imaginary house in this case will face to the right.  Draw vertical lines to establish the length and width of the building.  You have made a box similar to what we did before.
3. On the wide part of the box, draw diagonal lines from corner to corner to find its center.  Extend a vertical line through this center point and extend it about 1 1/2″ above the top of your box.  This will define the height of the gable end of the roof.
4. Connect the top of the gable with the vertical sides of the box at both ends, extending just a little beyond the side to make your eaves.
5. Now draw a converging line from the gable peak to the left vanishing point.  This is the top of the roof.
6. What about the back side of the roof?  To get this point, extend a vertical line from the right vanishing point all the way up as far as you can on your paper.
7. From the left corner of the facing side, extend a converging line all the way up the left side of the gable until it meets extended line you drew from the right vanishing point.  Make a dot where these lines meet — this is called a vanishing trace. Where it intersects the top of the roof is where your roof ends.
8. Extend a roof line a little beyond your left house end to make the roof.  From this point, draw a converging line to the vanishing trace.   Where it intersects the roof line is the end of your roof.
9. So far, you have made a box-type house with a gabled roof.  You can make some windows on one side if you wish like you made windows in the indoor examples.  Next post, I’ll discuss how to make a front porch, a walkway, and a fence enclosing the property!

DRAWING WITH PERSPECTIVE: Interior scene in 2 pt. perspective

Follow along with me as I show you how to draw an interior scene in 2 point perspective.  This is the same scene as the last one, only we’re looking at the corner of the room instead of the back wall.

Draw a rectangle 8″ high and 10″ wide in the middle of your large drawing pad.  Draw your eye level a little above center so that you will have a lot of floor to play with.

Set your left and right vanishing points.

Close to the middle of your rectangle, draw a vertical line about 2″ long — this will be the corner of your room.

To draw the ceiling, connect a line from the top of that corner to the left vanishing point and a line to the right vanishing point.

To draw the floor, connect a line from the bottom of the corner to the left vanishing point and another to the right vanishing point.  Do you see the floor and the ceiling now?

On one wall, draw a window and make sure your tops and bottoms are parallel — use the vanishing points.  Draw the window casing as well, if you can.  If you want, you may draw a door in the other wall as well.

To draw the floor tiles in 2-point perspective,  measure off 1″ marks on the floor line from the corner of the room along the wall.  Do this on both walls.  You will have to extend your floor lines all the way off the paper in order to make all the tiles.

From each of those points on the floor line, draw converging lines to the vanishing points.  If you do this on both walls, you will have tiles that grow smaller and smaller as they go back in space.  You can darken every other one of these so that you can see the pattern.

I know this is difficult — I hope you understood my directions.  Please let me know if I need to explain it further.  We’ll draw a house in a landscape for the next lesson in perspective.

 

DRAWING WITH PERSPECTIVE: BOXES IN ONE-POINT AND TWO-POINT PERSPECTIVE

   The easiest way to learn about 1 point and 2 point perspective is to draw simple open boxes above and below the horizon line (eye level).  On the left of the example are open boxes in 1 point perspective – one is above the horizon line and one is below. We will begin with the box on the left (1 point).

First, draw a horizon line and a square above the line and a square below the line.  Above the line you will see the bottom of the box; below the line you will see the top of the box (makes sense).  Now, select a vanishing point on the line.  On the top square, draw lines (orthogonals) from all four corners directly to that vanishing point.

Draw a horizontal line determining the width of the lower panel.  Now you see a 3-dimensional box.  But what if the box is open?  Draw perpendicular lines from the corners of the bottom panel that meet the orthogonals at the top of the box.  Now draw a horizontal line from those points that is parallel to the bottom line.

Erase the lines you don’t need and darken in the rear of the 3-dimensional box that you see.

Try doing the same thing on the bottom box in reverse.  Sometimes you can’t see the inside of the box depending on where your vanish point is and how deep you make your box.

Next time, we’ll draw a box in 2 point perspective.  By the way, it helps to use a t-square and triangle.

DRAWING THE HUMAN FIGURE

It’s been a while since I blogged — had a lot going on in my life lately.  Today, I’m merely passing along some information about drawing the human form that I’ve gleaned from books and magazines.  Unfortunately, I have no idea WHAT books and magazines I got these from.  Suffice it to say that my students learned a lot from these charts.  The first one is about the growth of children. You can see from this why babys’ heads and eyes always seem to be so big– they don’t grow as fast as the other parts of the body.  I apologize for the darkness of the example — it was on colored paper!

 

This next chart illustrates how the different sections of the body can be seen as basic forms: cylinders, spheres, wedges. It is much easier to draw figures if you think about various parts as simply shapes and forms.

In the future, I probably will not be posting drawing/painting lessons from my classes.  Instead, I will be sharing the artwork I have finished lately, or working on at the present.  I may be hanging up my apron as an art teacher!  At least for the summer!  Happy drawing to all of you!

DRAWING PORTRAITS – FEATURES OF THE FACE – EARS

You may think the ear is hard to draw because of its intricate folds and wrinkles, but if you just get the basic shape right, it’s not that difficult.  If the head is drawn straight on, like a wanted ad, you can hardly see the ear, especially if hair covers it.  The problem comes when the head is seen in 3/4 view, or in profile.  That’s when you need to look carefully at the ear’s inner and outer shapes.  Here is an example of the ear seen in profile:

This is a man’s ear — a woman’s ear is more rounded, or course.

 

    Here is an older man’s portrait.

 

 

 

 

And here is a young girls’ portrait

 

 

 

 

Other examples:

 

DRAWING PORTRAITS – THE FEATURES OF THE FACE

DRAWING THE MOUTH AND LIPS

One of the most expressive features of the face is the mouth — it can express a person’s age, gender, ethnicity, and emotion.  Everyone’s mouth is different, so look for the uniqueness in your model’s mouth and lips.  Generally speaking, however, the top lip is slimmer and more in shadow than the lower lip, because it recedes slightly backward.  Full lips look youthful, while thin lips look older.  The top lip has a little indentation in the middle and slants downward toward the edge of the mouth.  The lower lip seems to have two ovoid shapes on either side.  See example below:

Be careful if you include the teeth.  You don’t want them to look like pickets in a fence.  You can define an adult’s teeth by showing the gums at the top and a division at the bottom.  The teeth are shaded more as they recede into the mouth.  Children’s teeth are usually seen as individual, since their’s are not fully developed.

Be aware of the subtle shading of the lips.  There is usually a slight highlight on the lower lip.  Watch especially what happens in a three-quarter and profile view.   Remember also, that there is some shading under the mouth.  Since the lips protrude slightly from the face, there are several tonal variations in the skin and surrounding areas.  So be observant, and practice in your sketchbook.

DRAWING PORTRAITS – THE FEATURES OF THE FACE

Once you have the correct proportions of the face, and have considered the planes of the face as it turns away from the light, it’s time to put in the features of the face:  the eyes, eyebrows, nose, ears, mouth.  This is the time for careful observation, because even though everyone’s features are close to the same, it is the little differences that cause you to draw a true likeness.  Here are some pointers.

THE EYE:  The eyeball fits into the eye socket and the eyelids wrap over the eyeballs.  The pupil is quite large in dim light, and smaller in bright light.  The iris is darker under the eyelid because of the overlapping shape.  Be sure that the eyeballs are placed in the same position in the eye socket, so the model doesn’t look cross-eyed, and make sure that the highlights in the iris and the pupils are in the same place.  Light colored eyes usually have a darker rim (limbus) around the iris.  Eyebrows vary from individual to individual and help to contribute to a correct likeness. As the face turns or tilts, the eyeballs can be foreshortened.  Don’t forget the tear duct.  Pay attention to the lower eyelid, the wrinkles and shadows around the eye.  Shadows are darker close to the nose — these shadows often give structure to the nose.

A lot of expression can be put into the placement of the eyeball — for instance, if surprise or fright is to be shown, the whites of the eyes can be seen around the eyeball.  If the model is sleepy, uninterested, or even angry, the eyelids squeeze together – maybe even in a squint.  Careful observation is necessary.

Don’t make the mistake of putting in lines for eyelashes — simply darken about the eye to suggest them.  The eyelashes are thickest toward the outer corner.  The lower lid has a mild highlight along it’s edge.

 

DRAWING PORTRAITS – FORESHORTENING

Knowing about the basic proportions of the head is fine, but what happens when the artist doesn’t have a frontal view, or the head is tilted causing foreshortening?  A bigger problem, of course.  Actually, a profile view is easiest of all to draw because you have the negative space to help, and maybe because you only have one eye, one ear, one nostril, one-half of the lip to draw! At any rate, most people would not like to have their portrait done head on – like a wanted poster.  The best view for portraits is a 3/4 view.

And if the head is tilted upward, or downward, the basic proportions of 1/3, or 1/2 no longer work.  If the head tilts upward, you see more of the chin, neck, nostrils, etc. and less of the forehead.  The proportional ‘thirds” diminish near the top of the head, and the nose appears above the lower part of the ear.  If the head tilts downward, you will see more of the hair, the forehead and less of the eyes, lips and nose.  The top “third” seems to be larger and the nose is below the lower part of the ear.  Always remember to find the center line and the slant of the head.  Notice the curves in the vertical and horizontal center lines.  Here are some examples.  Although not the best drawings in the world, you can see what happens in each case.

DRAWING PORTRAITS – BASIC PROPORTIONS

CURRENTLY, I AM TEACHING A PORTRAIT/FIGURE DRAWING CLASS AT THE MAUMELLE SENIOR WELLNESS CENTER.  I AM SHARING SOME OF THE LESSONS ON MY BLOG.

WHEN YOU DRAW A PORTRAIT OR A FIGURE STUDY FROM LIFE, YOU HAVE TO HAVE A KNOWLEDGE OF PROPORTION – MEASUREMENT AND COMPARISON.  EVERY PERSON IS DIFFERENT, BUT THERE ARE SOME SIMILARITIES – SOME BASIC PROPORTIONS THAT WILL HELP YOU GET A LIKENESS.

ALWAYS BEGIN WITH A SKETCH – USE YOUR EYE TO SKETCH THE SUBJECT LIGHTLY – THEN YOU CAN USE MEASUREMENT AND COMPARISONS TO BECOME MORE ACCURATE.  KEEP IT SIMPLE AND LEARN TO USE OBSERVATION.  BEGIN WITH A STANDARD LINE – A BENCHMARK, AS HEIGHT. MAKE LIGHT MARKS TO INDICATE THE TOP AND BOTTOM OF THE HEAD.   DRAW A LITTLE BIT SMALLER THAN LIFE SIZE.

WE ARE TRYING TO DEPICT A 3 DIMENSIONAL SUBJECT ON A 2 DIMENSIONAL SHEET OF PAPER.  IT HELPS TO THINK OF THE PICTURE PLANE AS AN INVISIBLE PANE OF GLASS BETWEEN YOU AND THE SUBJECT.

 Start with basic oval shape. Draw lines to divide the shape in half vertically and horizontally.  The eyes are located on the center line of the shape.  

 Measure – the width of five eyes for the width of the face and the length of seven eyes for the height. 

 Draw eyes on horizontal line with one eye width of space between.

 Draw horizontal line halfway between eyes and chin, — this is the bottom of the nose and ears.

 Mouth line is about a third of the way down from the nose line.  The hair line is a third above the eyebrows.

 Draw vertical lines down from the inside corner of the eyes to the nose line = the width of the bottom of the nose.

 Lines from the center of the eyes drawn vertically place the edges of the mouth.

 Eyebrows line up with the tops of the ears and the bottom of ears line up with bottom of nose.

 Add neck and shoulder in cylinder and wedge forms.

                                                                                           

 

THE LAST OF ARTIST QUOTATIONS!

These are pretty much the last of the quotations I’ve collected over the years.  I’m particularly thankful for those of you who have sent me your favorite quotations.  Please feel free to do so, and I’ll add them to my book of quotations.

 

“The painter today has a choice: to break new ground and try to do what has never been done or to paint the uncommonly common in a way that reflects insights that are personal yet unique for anyone who encounters them.” Elizabeth Mowry

“That landscape painter who does not make his skies a very material part of his compositions neglects to avail himself of one of his greatest aids.” John Constable

“Great art depends on exaggeration for expressive effect.” Skip Lawrence

“Art is the proper task of life; art is life’s metaphysical exercise.” Friedrich Wilheim Nietzsche

“Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.” Plutarch

“Everything is related to everything else.” Leonardo da Vinci

“Form is the outer expression of inner meaning.” Wassily Kandinsky

“The gift is not the act of painting; it is the passion to paint.”  Unknown

“Drawing requires no exceptional ability, only normal vision and a degree of coordination.” Nita Leland