This week, at this term’s opening meeting of the Tavistock Group of Artists, one of our members (Ian Pethers RMS, SBA) gave a quick talk and demonstration on the basics of perspective. Key things for me to remember from this:
- “Art does not follow rules, rules follow art” (although it is good to know the rules, so you know what you are disregarding!)
- The horizon moves with the viewer – if two people are looking at a view, their horizons will be different (unless they are of identical height)
- He demonstrated using pen on a board which had a pin through the middle to which a string was attached – the pin was the vanishing point, around which he constructed an entire street scene using the string as a guide to the angle of the lines – brilliantly simple, works for my brain! He pointed out how things change as they become more distant, eg it’s not far before you can’t see the actual window glass, only the facing edge of the window recess.
- Drawing e.g. tiles on a floor using guide lines – these will be fractionally curved as they near the viewer, due to the movement of the head/eyes
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