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Understanding a bit of PerspectiveMadeleine Jacobs
Blocking a Detailed Image
If you have a detailed image like this one, then the perspective is pretty obvious. The bird is the main focal point and the foliage in the background will be muted; blunted and soft; very fuzzy. The perspective and balance is totally on the bird. Your difficulty may be in getting the body of the bird right so how do you break down a complicated image? Look at your entire image. Decide how you might like to portray it. Focus on how the parts are put together. They are not really one giant piece put together (well in nature they are, but to the artist, they have to be looked at a bit different) but they can be looked at as building blocks that are connected. The toucan is actually a series of circles and rectangles that have been connected and then filled in. The branch he's sitting on is a set of two very long rectangles bent at different angles. At the top of the picture in blue are leaves that were outlined in odd rectangles that can be shaped to create leaves and so on. Do the same for objects around you and your home. Look at your face in the mirror; it's an oval that can be filled in. Look at the fingers of your hand, the shape of your spoon. This is the best way to reduce the complicated matter of drawing shapes and beginning to paint. Vanishing Perspective Points Now this next one is pretty
interesting... The blue lines indicate the horizon line and the red lines indicate where the vanishing point is ...that the road is narrowing toward the horizon line and is suggesting distance and when you paint, you will need to emulate the same thing. The white oval is the very foreground where your viewer will be 'standing'. This is great in terms of perspective but you will not find is easy to create shapes. This is no problem, really and actually is a lot more fun to just hint at them with a brush or pencil. This would make a wonderful painting!
The long white line here also suggests the horizon line in the distance, and the two side lines from the little over hang and the end of the dock show the vanishing point just like the photo above. Now, here is where we overlap into composition a bit because the dock comes down to the lower right hand corner. This invites the 'viewer', who is in the foreground remember, to walk on to the dock and over the water. You want them to do the same when you paint. Proper perspective isn't just about getting it right...it's also about telling a story, conveying an emotion, getting your viewer to participate in your painting. Different Perspective Planes
Paintings and photos actually have only a background, a mid-ground and a foreground, but with a photo like this, I tend to break it up even more because of its wide open spaces and its distance. That alone makes it beautiful and wonderfully challenging in a different way. You can see from the horizon line (white) to the first level (blue) how hazy and distant it is. There's really not detail at all and as the viewer's eyes gradually move closer, (blue to red) the the detail increases incrementally until the detail becomes much bolder (red to green). Where at this point (green on to yellow oval in foreground) there is a much detail as we're going to get. There is much value in breaking this up as there is in blocking an image up for perspective. If this is your white elephant....I hope helps :)
Madeleine Jacobs. (photos from Microsoft Vista) March 2/17 /2008 Visit ...http://armchairpaintclasses.blogspot.com/
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