THE LAWS OF PERSPECTIVE 3

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In fact these rules are so vital to any artists because it is its understanding that makes them as well as architects to be able to transform any 2D geometry into 3D. And when not applied well, it takes away from the meaning of the work. Artists generally do not have to use these laws in every drawing; however, there mastery is a must for any cartoonists, illustrators, architects and animators, most especially during scenes creations.

Earlier, before understudying these concepts, artists and cave men draw on animal skins and cave walls to represent something or to just communicate. They never really paid any attention to these laws as seen in the pictures below. The first one was drawn on a buffalo skin many years ago by a Pawnee in India, while the other picture was painted on a paper by a young girl during the 2014, IDM Boot camp in Lagos.

Buffalo skin picture (Courtesy Smithsonian Institute)

Indians often draw to send a message or tell a story. Can you tell what the men on the horseback are doing?

Picture from “Little Stories”

As you can see, no matter how good or poor a drawing is, the relationships between each of the objects in the scene give the eye a feeling of space or perspective.  In the last two drawings, laws 1,2 and 3 have been misapplied.  In the Buffalo skin picture, there is no way to distinguish between men and horses faraway and those near because they are all of the same size. An artist draw space and that is why several objects can be crowded into a very small space on either a piece of paper or on a canvass. 

The pictures below show some of the application of these principles. The first is a cartoon sketch from Flinger Nose comics, where two people arm wrestle on the foreground while some people watched behind. A light wavy line was drawn at the back of the scene to indicate the horizontal line. Below it is a painting that depicts two traditional wrestlers in a fight and several people gathered to watch. Carefully observe the placement of each object on the scene.  Can you identify the fore ground, the background and the horizontal line?

Arm wrestling

African wrestler

Assignment;

Copy the African wrestler painting and save it as a jpeg format.  Put the picture in any graphic editing software, MS Paint will do, and use a pen or brush too to draw the lines to indicate:

1.       the fore ground

2.        the background

3.       the horizontal line

Interested participants should send his/her answers to goguyone@gmail.com, with the subject “Perspective”.