Perspective With A Twist

Leaves, fronds, and stems like to twist, twirl and bend toward us, away from us, and with us. That can be a problem when designing a painting because our brain usually conceives ( ideates objects) from the side view not, the foreshortened view. We are either stumped or try to awkwardly fit our all conceptual information about a leaf, a hand, a fold of drapery, a corner of a building into a foreshortened view and the information won’t plausibly fit. There’s too much of it. Here are keys to diagramming foreshortened flora.

First, here is an example (oil on anodized white aluminum 24×24) using foreshortening with drawing, with color, and with scale ( proportional size reduction over distance ), and with overlapping forms. My first example shows you how I initially draw into the paint with my finger, a rag and a squeegee. It’s one method in which I can play with the subject (example 1).  Example 2 represents the second step with the image.  Example 3 diagrams how you can foreshorten leaves and fronds.

1. step one.

2. step two.

3. diagrams of foreshortening process.

Using schematic diagrams can help visualize foreshortened views. In the diagram above I begin with #1 a vertical frond then show you how to diagram (#2) a twist or twirl to the frond. You can do this by turning your brush or squeegee as you move across the paint. 3# demonstrates how to achieve foreshortening. I indicate the underside with a gray broken line.  #6 shows more bending and double twirling.  #8 demonstrates backward or reversed foreshortening and  #9 presents twirling and lipping which reveals the underside as it blocks a view of the top side of the frond.  Below them I demonstrate a progression of  foreshortening with a diagrammed leaf. The last image  shows a simultaneous foreshortened top and underside view of the leaf.

Next, consider two point perspective. The first example is my driveway toward sunset. the  shadows stretch far across the lane (example 4). I have diagrammed in red the shadows as they converge toward their solar light source, vanishing point “right”.  The blue-green orthogonals recede and converge toward the other vanishing point, “left”.  Parallel lines converge to the same vanishing point.  In example 5 you see a horizontally squeezed view of the corner of Macy’s at Herald Square in Manhattan. Here the diagrammed the orthogonals  converge again to opposite vanishing points. The right flank of Macy’s  converges right  and the left flank converges left as indicated by the red linear arrows.  Both vanishing points are on the eye level or sight line as I held the camera to my eye while snapping the shot.

4. diagram of 2 point perspective, driveway

5.diagram 0f 2 point perspective overlay of Macy’s

J.M.W.Turner held the chair for Perspective for the Royal Academy in London in the first half of the 19th century.  He used many forms for suggesting space in painting. In this evocative atmospheric perspective example, a painting about to be auctioned by Sotheby’s in New York,  Turner uses obscuring semi-opaque glazes as well as linear perspective to develop a feeling of deep space. His motif here is Florence, Italy.  We look down upon the river and the city.  To insure the river which churns with bright sunlit mist lays flat  Turner moves a bridge across a critical point in the river. This crossbar of a triple arched bridge helps to hold the river down into the landscape and prevents  us from feeling that the river is going uphill. He also uses linear perspective in the form of the long white building on the left.  The roof line and foundation line converge slightly below the horizon in another subtle manipulation to keep the river in its level bed, to aim the viewer not only back but into the painting. Turner accelerates the compression of the window spacing in the building. He constructed  it using the same two point perspective I demonstrated in example 4 above ( the Macy’s shot).  Turner also uses graduated semi-opaque layered glazes to build atmospheric distance; this is a topic I will save for later (example 5. full image, example 6. detail).  Contact Sotheby’s if you wish to put a bid on this painting. Have lots of available credit.

5. Turner, full image.

6. Turner detail with closeup view of bridge.

Here is my last chance to invite you to my skies workshop on Saturday November 8, 2014 at Silvermine School of Art at 203 966 6668 ext2. I still have another week to remind you about my Sunday workshop on Cityscapes at  Art of the Carolinas on November 16, 2014 in Raliegh-Durham, N.C. 800-827-8478 ext 156.