Preproduction lesson 1: Perspective (part 1)

(http://jezreelkang.blogspot.be/2011/01/sj18-perspective-drawings-one-point.html)

As I'll be giving an "introduction course" of preproduction to Mike, I thought "why not put it on the blog, so everyone can benefit from it?" So... Here it is!

Note: the images used in this article are not mine. Since I'm working this month, I don't have the time to draw examples. Where possible, I give the source of the image.

Lesson 1: Perspective
The first preproduction lesson is about perspective. You can describe perspective a bit like "How do the lines you draw behave?"
The kinds of perspective I will talk about here are orthographic perspective, one-, two- and three-point perspective.

* Orthographic perspective
Orthographic perspective is not a "natural" perspective. In this kind of perspective, parallel lines will never cross. It is mostly used for technical representations, but we will practically never use it.
Some examples:

The difference between perspective and orthographic
(http://ofps.oreilly.com/titles/9780596804824/chmath.html)

A little example
(http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?148878-Creating-an-Isometric-Camera)

Another example (okay, I just liked this image a lot)
(http://www.bighappyaccident.com/blog/2010/01/fun-from-an-orthographic-perspective/ )

* One-point perspective

This is the easiest form of perspective, and therefore the first one we will learn to draw. Before teaching you how to draw them however, first some examples:

(http://timluv.deviantart.com/art/One-point-perspective-exterior-142005975)

(http://www.art-rageous.net/Perspective.html)

In this kind of perspective, you should notice 3 types of "main" lines: horizontal ones, vertical ones and the ones that go to the vanishing point.

Now, as for how to draw 1-point perspective, this video will explain it better than text will do ;)

What I'd recommend to do though, it to draw the guidelines really softly, otherwise it will be very hard to erase them later on.

The video is from this site: http://www.learn-to-draw-lessons.com/realistic-drawing.html

You can look through it a bit, it seems quite interesting. :)

Another short video about drawing a cube in one-point perspective

The next video is a bit long, but it's really worth the watch. It explains how to draw cylinders in perspective. The way this woman draws the cicles is also the way we learned it. Pay attention ;-)

So, now you know how to draw boxes and cylinders in one-point perspective! Those are the most used shapes to "build up" common objects. This was lesson one, first practice a bit on drawing shapes and a simple landscape, like a road with houses. Then... go for the assignment! :D

Assignment 1: One-Point Perspective

time to deadline: one week

• Go to your local town/city (or another city if you want to :p ) and make about 10-20 pictures in one-point perspective.
• Select the 5 pictures you like most. Try choosing different viewpoints (low-mid-high horizon, left-mid-right vanishing point...)
• Put those pictures in black and white, and put them on a format of 12 cm width / 8 cm height. Print these out and cut them carefully
• For every picture: hold your blank paper vertically and carefully paste the picture in the center of the top half. On the bottom half of the page, draw a frame (with black pen) the same size of the picture.
• Now, in each frame, redraw the picture pasted above it. (Do NOT trace the picture, use a lightbox...) Build up your drawing: horizon line, vanishing  point, guidelines... Try to build up everything you see with basic shapes: boxes, cylinders... Leave out the details
• Try to keep your drawing clean: leave the guidelines, but make sure the actual drawing stands out enough: work with contrast!
• Every drawing should take about 20 minutes, 30 minutes max.

Extra:

• Select your two favorite images
• For each image: draw a frame of 24 cm / 16 cm on a new page
• Redraw the image, but change the viewpoint a bit. (more left/right/up/down...) Make it look even cooler!
• Same as before: use horizon, vanishing point, guidelines, basic shapes... to build up the image. Work neatly, leave the guidelines (softly), use contrast.
• If you want, you can add more detail. It is as you wish!
• About an hour for each drawing.

Goals:

• Recognize one-point perspective
• Find interesting viewpoints/compositions
• Recognize basic shapes within complex objects
• Build up one-point perspective (shapes)
• Work neatly, have an eye for the "finishing touch"
• Respect deadlines, learn to plan your work :p

Estimated time: about 6 hours (taking pictures, selecting, printing, cutting, pasting, drawing...) if you do the extra.

Okay, so this was my first "teaching article"... Please comment if you there are some parts that need more explanation. I'm only learning (to teach) too ;-) 

Next week I'll tell you more about two- and three-point perspective!

Greetz,

x Marcia