BASICS OF LINEAR PERSPECTIVE

I need to make some notes in my learning log, and being mindful that we will look at perspective in Part Four again.

There are many types of perspective. To name but a few: aerial perspective, frontal perspective (or 1-point perspective), angular perspective (or 2-points perspective or oblique view), perspectives with 3, 4, 5 and even 6 vanishing points. In the second half of the XVth century, Renaissance artists and mathematicians developed the linear perspective theory; – by now the laws of perspective were discovered. Brunelleschi, Alberti, Masaccio, Ghiberti, Piero della Francesca introduced the use of perspective, and, in doing so, forever changed further development of art.

I have now looked at interior genre painting and are mostly reminded to apply the basic linear perspective rule, namely the vanishing point to create a sense of depth and my two dimensional canvas. I am busy preparing for my sister’s visit over Christmas time – might at well give the guest room a good look. There is a big king size bed with headrest, small bedside cabinets, a loose carpet and an Ikea rocking chair in the room, which has grey curtains in front of the windows and medium dark veneer floorcovering. There is a sliding door facing North, a small window facing West and and a normal size window facing South. The room also as an extra door opening out to a small patio to the South, which connects to my working space. The door into the bedroom leads from a long corridor. The bedroom is on the first floor of this villa. ( in dubai we call our homes a villa)

I quickly learn that I have to find the horizon line first, and add two perspective points on the outer edges of my horizon line. I know that I will need to line up any lines with the vanishing point. I decide to create a picture plane template with 45′ lines drawn from the two vanishing points and in this way ensure that all the lines reach the vanishing points. The idea is to have all the angles facing the right side of the picture plane will be drawn form the left vanishing point, and vice versa for the other side. For the rest I will be working with vertical and diagonal lines.

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