The basics of Perspective Drawing Part 1
Channel: Oscar Baechler
Date: 21/01/2017

The basics of perspective for artists. Drawing software like Krita can provide helping assistants for perspective drawing, but that won't help if you don't understand the fundamentals of WHY perspective works the way it does. 

Video #1 covers explanations of basic perspective vocabulary from the side and top view, the theory of rays entering your eye and transcribing that to a glass pane or canvas, and why things appear to vanish at the, ahem, vanishing point.

Vocabulary...

Station point: Where you're standing. Important for calculating where your viewpoint is; if you're 6 feet tall, the viewpoint is 6 ft from the station point. If you're 6 feet tall on a 2000 ft mountain, the viewpoint is 2006 feet from the station point. 

Viewer/Viewpoint/Painter/Artist: the point that represents your eyes. 

Viewer: the person looking. Consider it the combination of the station point + the viewpoint. 

Line of Sight: A ray emitted straight from the viewpoint. Although you can rotate it anywhere in space (just turn your head), we'll assume for now you look straight ahead, AKA your line of sight is parallel to the ground and perpendicular to the viewer. 

Principle Vanishing point: the point in space where lines parallel to the line of sight will appear to converge and vanish. Remember, for now we're assuming you're looking straight ahead. 



For more information, I recommend Perspective by Rex Vicat Cole.  

https://archive.org/details/cu31924020581041

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