Sometimes An Artist Wants To Make Things Look Real... Perspective In Art

 Key  Stage 1

There are many ways to look at objects.

You can look from the top
You can look from the bottom
You can look from the side
You can look close up
You can look from far away

Things look different depending on your perspective...where you are looking from.

Let's say I want to draw a picture of the grass and some sky, I am going to draw a line across my page. Where is the grass and where is the sky...hummmmmm. We look up at the sky, and all that "sky air" goes all the way down to the grass or ground. It is called the horizon line. The sun first comes up on the horizon and goes down in the evening on the horizon.

So I want to make a little road. What do we know about things that are far away??? YES...they appear smaller. Hold your hand in front of your face...seems pretty big, but keep moving it away from your face, it gets smaller.

I am going to make a point on my  paper, where my road will vanish into. I will make it wider as I draw towards the bottom of my paper because I know that when things are closer they look bigger.

 I can add things like houses and trees. What do you notice? 

Key Stage 2

Sometimes An Artist Wants To Make Things Look Real...Perspective in Art

This is a lesson for the drawing studio. 

I would like to make a landscape with a house and trees...how do I begin??

You know what a horizon line is...

 

 

  Next, I will place my vanishing point on the horizon line. The vanishing point is a point in space where something disappears. I will draw two parallel lines that converge.

 I might add trees. I know that the one in the back will be smaller because things look smaller as they recede.

 I might add a building...but it doesn't look very real in this picture...why?

I can make marks going from the corners of my building all the way to the vanishing point and then make parallel lines to show how deep my building is.

If you want to make a long row of trees...start by making one at the bottom of your paper. Mark with a ruler from the tree to the vanishing point. Make each tree to fit onto that line. It will get smaller, as it approaches the vanishing point.

You can use your skill of using perspective in any studio. You might make a print, a drawing or painting. You could collage a scene or make a scene in the fiber arts studio.

You might want to practice by making vanishing points and boxes just for fun!

What happens if you use this skill with other shapes, letters or numbers??