The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - Betty Edwards [53]
This trick of the artist’s mind, so difficult to describe, is even more difficult for beginning students to discover on their own. In this course, therefore, you need an actual picture plane (your plastic Picture Plane) and actual window frames (the Viewfinders).
These devices seem to work like magic in causing students to “get” what drawing is—that is, to understand the fundamental nature of drawing perceived objects or persons.
To further help beginners in drawing, I asked you to draw crosshairs on your sheet of plastic (the plastic Picture Plane). These two “grid” lines represent vertical and horizontal, the two constants that the artist absolutely depends on to assess relation ships. Early on in my classes, I used a grid of many lines, but I found that students were counting up—“two spaces over and three down.” This is just the kind of L-mode activity we didn’t want. I then reduced the “grid” lines to one vertical and one horizontal and found that was sufficient.
It might help your understanding of the picture plane to realize that photography grew out of drawing. In the years before photography was invented, artists generally understood and used the concept of the picture-plane. You can imagine the artists’ excitement (and, perhaps, dismay) to see that a photograph could, in an instant, capture the image on the picture-plane—an image that would have taken an artist hours, days, or even weeks to render in a drawing. Artists, deposed from realistic depiction, began exploring other aspects of perception, such as the effects of light (Impressionism). After photography became common, the concept of the picture plane was less necessary and began to fade away.
The picture plane is an imaginary vertical surface, like a window, through which you look at your subject. In this way, you copy your three-dimensional view of the world to your two-dimensional surface onto your drawing paper.
Dozens of picture planes and perspective devices are recorded in the U.S. Patent Office. Here are two examples.
Later on, you will need neither the plastic Picture Plane with its gridlines nor the Viewfinders. You will replace these technical devices with the imaginary, internalized mental picture-plane that every artist uses, whether consciously or subconsciously. The actual plane (your plastic Picture Plane) and the actual Viewfinders are simply very effective aids during the time you are learning how to draw.
Try this: Fasten your Viewfinder, the one with the largest opening, on top of the Picture Plane, using your clips. Close one eye and hold the Picture Plane/Viewfinder together up in front of your face. See Figure 6-8.
Look at the “framed” image, whatever is in front of your eye (singular). You can change the “composition” by bringing the Viewfinder closer to or farther away from your face, much as a camera viewfinder works. Check out the angles of the edges of the ceiling, or perhaps of a table, relative to the crosshairs—that is, relative to vertical and horizontal. These angles may surprise you. Next, imagine that you are drawing with your felt-tip marker what you see on the plane, just as you did in drawing your hand. See Figure 6-9.
Then turn to see another view, and then another, always keeping the picture-plane parallel to the front of your face. Don’t slant it in any direction! One way to practice not slanting the plane is to bring the plastic Picture Plane right up to your face, then quickly extend your arms straight out together.
Next, choose a view that you like, framed by your Viewfinder on the plastic Picture Plane. Imagine that you are “copying” what you see on the plane onto a piece of drawing paper. Remember,