The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - Betty Edwards [69]
Sighting can be used to determine the relationship of lengths and widths of forms. When drawing a table viewed from an oblique angle, for example, an artist first determines angles of the edges relative to horizontal and vertical by sighting, as in Figure 8-4.
Fig. 8-4.
The next perception required is how wide the table is (from this viewpoint) in relation to its length. This apparent width relative to length will vary from viewpoint to viewpoint, depending on where the viewer’s eye level happens to be.
1. Holding the pencil on a plane parallel to your eyes and at arm’s length, with the elbow locked to keep the scale constant, measure the width of the table. Place the eraser of the pencil so it coincides with one corner of the table and place your thumb at the other corner. This is your Basic Unit (Figure 8-5).
2. Still keeping your elbow locked and with the pencil still parallel to your eyes, carry that measurement to the long side of the table (Figure 8-5). How long is the table, relative to its width? In this instance, the ratio is one to one and a half (1:1½) (Figure 8-6).
3. Next, you will take a sight on the table legs by holding your pencil vertically, taking note of the angle of one leg relative to vertical. Are the table legs perfectly vertical or are they at an angle? Draw the leg closest to you. You can take a sight on the length of the leg relative (again) to the width, your Basic Unit (Figure 8-7).
Fig. 8-5.
Fig. 8-6.
Fig. 8-7.
“Point of view is worth eighty points of IQ.”
—Alan Kay, computer
scientist and Disney
Fellow
Perspective and proportion
Learning to draw in perspective requires that we see things as they are out there in the external world. We must put aside our prejudgments, our stored and memorized stereotypes and habits of thinking. We must overcome false interpretations, which are often based on what we think must be out there even though we may never have taken a really clear look at what is right in front of our eyes.
I’m sure you can see the connection to problem solving. One of the first steps in solving problems is to scan the relevant factors and to put things “into perspective” and “into proportion.” This process requires the capacity to see the various parts of a problem in their true relationship.
Defining perspective
The term “perspective” comes from the Latin word “prospectus,” meaning “to look forward.” Linear perspective, the system most familiar to us, was perfected during the Renaissance by European artists. Linear perspective enabled artists to reproduce visual changes of lines and forms as they appear in three-dimensional space.
Various cultures have developed different conventions or perspective systems. Egyptian and Oriental artists, for example, developed a kind of stair-step or tiered perspective, in which placement from bottom to top of the format indicated position in space. In this system, which is often used intuitively by children, the forms at the very top of the page—regardless of size—are considered to be the farthest away. More recently, artists have rebelled against rigid conventions of perspective and have invented new systems employing abstract spatial qualities of colors, textures, lines, and shapes.
Fig. 8-8. Albrecht Dürer, Draughtsman Making a Perspective Drawing of a Woman (1525). Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gift of Felix M. Warburg, 1918.
Traditional Renaissance perspective conforms most closely to the way people in our Western culture perceive objects in space. In our perceptions, parallel lines appear to converge at vanishing points on a horizon line (the viewer’s eye level) and forms appear to become smaller as distance from the viewer increases. For this reason, realistic drawing depends heavily