art nerd

in drawing class we've been learning to draw perspective. we started out with single point perspective. (imagine looking off into the distance, and on the horizon directly in front of you is what is called your "vanishing point" - the point at which all lines converge and appear to vanish). single point perspective is challenging and not my fav.

next we moved onto two point perspective. this is where you may be looking at a single object (say, a building) and can see at least two sides of the object (imagine standing on the corner, looking at a house), and that object has two vanishing points - one to it's right and one to it's left. depending on where you place your horizon (above, below, or in the center of the object) you can see the top, bottom or frontal view. and depending where you put your vanishing points (closer to the object or further away) the distortion of the object changes. it's really quite fascinating.

in case you can't tell, learning this made me giddy. it isn't just that i can draw this... i also loved the way my instructor taught the class how to draw... it was a problem solving exercise. he just gave us a couple loose parameters and said "i can't tell you any more than that or it will give it away" and we had to figure out how to do it ourselves. brilliantly taught! i had a smile when he came around to check how i was doing. i was so proud of myself :) in fact, i spent the entire walk home yesterday (just over a mile) reveling in my newly acquired ability to draw two point linear perspective.

once home, i filled three pages of my sketchbook with 2pt linear perspective drawings - several drawings per page. i used the same object example for all the drawings on one page, but adjusted the vanishing points and horizon location just to see how this would alter the look of the object. on my final drawing, i created a T - shaped building with a partial 2 story center, windows and doors. it looks like it could be a real place.

yes, i can draw 3D and make up entire cities and buildings seen from above or below or straight on, using only my imagination, a piece of paper, a pencil and a ruler. this, my friends, is what fun is all about.

true story.