Perspective Basics part I

Just finished seeing the Godfather trilogy, love those movies by the way, and I decided to scan some of the perspective drawings I made for this blog. The tracing of perspective is used vey often when drawing. That is the reason why all the theory and concepts of perspective should remian pretty clear for artists. Thanks to its application the artist will have a better understanding of the models and will be able to portrait different situations even without a model, but capturing the depth. It would be helpful for this matter, to imagine that there is a plane (the canvas plane) between the artist and the subject. The size of a projected object will decrease in size as the object moves farther from the plane. And at the same time it will be biggger if it comes closer. This means that equal measures of an object will vary depending their proximity to the plane. Fundamental elements of perspective These are the technical terms used when talking about perspective: Horizon - This line indicates the height of the artists eyes. It will vary depending at what height we are situated when drawing. Point of View - Represents the situation of the artist left or right of the model. The distance from this point to the horizon is called "visual distance". The perpendicular projection form the horizon is called the main point. Vanishing Points - They are located on the horizon and all the parallel lines on the model join in them. Types of Perspective (click to enlarge pics) 1. Depending on the position that the artist takes facing the model, we can distinguish 3 types of perspective. First we see the forntal or parallel perspective, this uses only one vanishing point, that coincides with the main point.

2. The two point perspective uses 2 vanishing points located on the horizon when you prolong a 90º angle having as the vortex the point of view. (The 90º measure is determined because the angle of the cube is 90º)

3. Finally the 3 point or aerial perspective uses 3 vanishing points. When the horizon is too low or too high, the lineas become distorted by perspective and we need an external third point in an auxiliary horizon.