LECTURE 3
PE R S P E C T I V E
DRAWING
INTRODUCTION
AN UNDERSTANDING OF PERSPECTIVE is mandatory for all students and
professionals involved with representational drawing. This includes a wide variety
of fields, such as: Illustration, Interior Design, Architecture, Industrial Design,
Engineering Design, Scenic Design and even Fine Arts. While each of these areas
applies perspective techniques for different purposes and to varying degrees of
thoroughness, artists in all of them must be knowledgeable and experienced in
basic perspective fundamentals and principles.
Perspective
Perspective is a technique used by artists to give their drawings the illusion of depth
and distance. When a viewer looks at a picture that utilizes this technique, they get
the impression that they are looking through a window where the frame represents
the sides of the picture, and it appears to them that the scene recedes into the
distance from a fixed point located on the side closest to the viewer at the window.
Perspective drawing is nevertheless concerned with achieving a sense of space, of
depth and of the third dimension, within the limits of the flat drawing surface
There are two main types of perspective in Western art:
Aerial perspective and linear perspective. Although some civilizations have
developed styles of perspective drawing—such as the Chinese and the Indians, for
example—Eastern styles as a whole do not produce the realistic effect implied by
Western techniques.
Aerial perspective: it is based on the fact that light, shadow, and color
change according to the distance of an object from the viewing point. for
example, we find that distant objects appear more blurry and less defined in
terms of their outlines, unlike objects viewed up close. additionally, the color
of the sky changes from intense blue directly overhead to a light blue color
that becomes increasingly brighter as it approaches the horizon. the artist
creates aerial perspective by altering color tones, line weight, and line
clarity.
linear perspective: it is based on a geometric rule that states that parallel lines
receding into the distance appear to meet at a single point on the horizon line,
which is known as the vanishing point. to understand how linear perspective works,
look out from a window at a long, straight road or railroad track. you will notice that
the sides of the road or the two rails appear to draw closer together until they meet
at a point on the horizon.