Perspective Drawing

Lesson idea from: Andy DiConti - Two Point Perspective
Grave Level: Middle School

 

Procedure:

Students made 8" (20.3 cm) square drawings. Colored Pencils. were used. See more examples in Kara's Art Room. Use the work of Craig Blair with this lesson.

 

See Howie Green's Mamboland for inspiration. Fanciful "Pop" landscapes following the rules of perspective.

 

Contemporary artist to connect with Surreal Perspective Space:
Norma Bessouet - Contemporary artist from Argentina. Beautiful Surreal work. Be sure to view all painting galleries. The work is stunning.


See Resources below...

 

1 3

 

2

 

Two Point Perspective from Andy DiConti

 

5 4

One Point Perspective by Mike Sacco

One Point Perspective by Rebecca Engleman
7 8

Damean Ray Robinson (Line drawing with collage) Distorted Perspective - also see David Hockney

One Point Perspective by Renee Berg
8 9

Op Art with Perspective - from Kara LiCausi

 

Lesson Ideas:

From Sidnie Miller:

Draw a library in 1 point perspective-interior view and in the center back have a big open book with stuff flying out of it in perspective.

From Jan Hillmer - Greek Temples - Fifth Grade

 

. .

 

I showed 5th grade the very basics on Greek columns and architecture and they took notes in their sketchbooks. The previous day we did 1pt. perspective with their names in block letters, kindergarten house (square under triangle) and a few other shapes. Then I asked the kids to create their own temple with columns of their choice. They drew the front, off to one side. Then we did the 1 pt perspective, to make the temple go back in space. Columns were added along the side. This is what took forever. This is on colored Construction Paper. Then the horizon line was put in.

 

My problem was/is getting the kids to understand that the back of the building also falls under the rules of perspective. I haven't got a good explanation down for explaining how the sides and planes parallel to the horizon line don't change - just the planes/sides going away from the viewer.

 

The kids colored the temples in gray and white oil pastel, which blended with the pencil - an interesting surprise. Next they colored in the ground - nothing too fancy - grass, rocks, etc. Then we did the ripped paper and rubbing the oil pastel down from the edge of the rip onto the temple paper to create a few rows of mountains behind the temple. Last, they could do whatever with the sky. Drawing the temple took 3 hours, coloring 1! They look great and was begun as the kids were studying the Greeks and Romans. Use this KinderArt Lesson: Drawing Out Doors- adapt to your needs. Teaches aerial perspective and scale - placement on the page to show distance.

 

.

From Jan Hillmer - Perspective Letters - 3rd grade

"Art", 1 point perspective, on black paper with Crayola Gel Effects Pencils, by a 3rd grade student. Jan preceded this by having the students try one point perspective with squares (cubes), circles (Spheres) and then moving on to having them do a few letters, one had to be angular, the second had to be rounded. This word design was done after those exercises. Jan spent three classes on this unit.

 

From Karen Chilman -Exercises in Perspective Drawing

Karen has her seventh graders for 6 weeks. These are the result of a one week study

 

Karen-persp.practice.jpg (21602 bytes) Karen-persp2.jpg (8141 bytes) Karen-perspective.jpg (11337 bytes)

Click to see larger images.

  

From Ellen Sears:

This may help with some of the kids struggling - but work backwards (in a way), start with an image... it is something I did with my 8th graders when we did 3 point perspective - I copied images from an Escher book - I used an image of his building (3 pt. perspective) - pretty big, but centered on 11 x 17 paper - some border around the image. (If you don't have copy paper that big, run it off on legal or regular and tape to a larger sheet) - The kids had to use a ruler to follow (trace) lines - which they discovered led to the three vanishing points. After tracing on an existing image, it was easier for them to draw their own. This may work with pages from an architectural magazine - or one of the great Dover publications - copy, have them use a ruler to trace lines - the vanishing points and the relationships between the lines 'appear' - Ellen

 

From Dawn Steineker:

I'm actually teaching my Art I students perspective at the moment. Today they did one point and I showed them step-by-step on the overhead, just like I did with middle school, and believe it or not, many more than I excepted really struggled.... One made a great analogy though, he said that you move the ruler sort of like the hands on a clock! It really helped them to think of the orthogonal (A term I learned on Harold Olejarz's tutorial) lines as pivoting, much like the hands. Otherwise they had a tendency to stray from the vanishing point.

 

Design an Art Museum - From Sara Green

Draw a one point perspective room with frames on the wall and a sculpture table or case. Have the students design an art museum by drawing works of art in the frames drawn on the paper. You can suggest they use what they have learned in previous lessons or projects as a start, or you could leave postcards of famous art work. They can draw people looking at the work as well. At a higher level they could design a specific type of museum - a Picasso museum, a modern art museum etc.

 

Surreal Perspective - from Judy Decker

Students create room - city scape - whatever they choose in one or two point perspective. Drawings could be rendered in just ink line - or colored pencils added (or choice of media). Surreal elements are added from magazine cut outs. I saw this lesson first in a 1970s School Arts of Arts & Activities. Many have done variations of this. Windows, doors and cupboard doors could be cut with X-acto knives to reveal hidden images.

 

Space Station - from Marsha Gegerson

Lesson for 6th grade. We did the preliminary lesson "cubes" above and below the horizon. line ( had 3 above the H. line and 2 below). I started to play around on the chalkboard and turned them into a space station with conveyor belts coming from the cubes ( with a diminishing horizontal-lined walkway) to a central pod which we drew as an oval in perspective. Added huge windows, antenna, etc. I imagine you could also do the transport room and the main control deck in 2 point perspective. The kids ate it up!

 

Resources:

Video: Basic Perspective Drawing with Gerald Brommer Single Concepts in Art.[VHS] (# 8368 available from Art Video World - 1-800-644-3429- NOTE: This video is now hard to find and may no longer be available at Art Video World or anywhere. There is only one copy left on Amazon). This is a good video for you to watch to brush up on your skills in teaching this unit. Do make a model box that physically demonstrates one and two point perspective - boxes on the line - above and below the horizon line. Students get to actually SEE what the box should look like. Maybe even try a tall box to demonstrate three point perspective. Nice step by step approach to teaching the skills. Video is 29 minutes long... but you will want to spread it over several days to allow practice time of the new skills.

 

Since this video may no longer be available, here are a few other videos on perspective:

Techniques of Scott Robertson 1: Basic Perspective Form Drawing.[DVD]- On this DVD Scott introduces the basics of 1, 2 and 3 point perspective drawing and leads you through the exercises needed to gain the skills necessary to draw man-made forms of your own design. Intended to be a lecture for the beginner or a refresher for the working professional, Scott shares the form building basics he utilizes when doing his advanced vehicle drawings; the drawing of freehand perspective grids and ellipses becomes the basis for a form building strategy. The DVD concludes with the drawing of complex curved surfaces that become the building blocks for vehicles in Scott's following DVD's.

Art In The Classroom Series: Perspective Drawing.[DVD] - Students learn how to see perspective before they draw it. Experts teach one-, two- and three-point perspective.

Drawing In One-Point Perspective.[DVD] - by Harold Olejarz. The DVD contain 29 step-by-step drawing tutorials, along with images by Jan Vredeman de Vries, photographs, and sections on key concepts, drawing tools and how to start a one-point perspective drawing. This tutorial has been used by teachers from grades 5 to college to teach the fundamentals of one-point perspective.

The expanded version of Harold's Drawing in One-Point Perspective website is now available as an interactive CD or DVD on his website at:
http://www.olejarz.com/arted/perspective/order.html

Both the CD and DVD contain the same 29 step-by-step drawing tutorials, along with images of drawings by Jan Vredeman de Vries, photographs, and sections on key concepts, drawing tools and how to start a one-point perspective drawing. The CD and DVD include step-by-step visual handouts of the 29 one-point perspective drawing projects (47 page PDF file to print out).

 

You can see a sample of one of the lessons on the CD and DVD at:
http://www.olejarz.com/arted/perspective/ordercd.html

 

The DVD can be played on a TV or computer with a DVD player. The CD works on any computer with a web browser such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape or Safari. You will need to download the newest version of Quick Time (it is free) and set your PC security settings to allow active content on CDs.

 

Books

The Art of Perspective: The Ultimate Guide for Artists in Every Medium. - In this comprehensive guide, Phil Metzger demystifies perspective, presenting it simply as a matter of mimicking the way we see--like the way a distant mountain appears blue, or a road seems to narrow in the distance.

Perspective Drawing. - This book offers a concise introduction to the basics of linear perspective and provides a clear and proven method for learning perspective drawing.

Perspective Drawing Handbook. - Concise, thoughtfully written text on drawing and sketching, accompanied by more than 150 simply drawn illustrations, provides important information on such subjects as diminution, foreshortening, convergence, shade and shadow, and other visual principles of perspective. Illustrations depict a sense of space and depth, demonstrate vanishing points and eye level.

 

Internet Links:

Need a fun artist to inspire? Rodney Alan Greenblat (born 1960) New York artist. View the gallery, watercolors, digital and screen prints. Lots of fun ideas to inspire students. Browse his work and you come up with many find ideas for perspective lessons. How about a plan for miniature golf? Ideas for machines... more!

See ArtsConnect Ed Artist's Tool Kit Great way to Introduce Perspective - watch the demonstration then find perspective in various works. Create your own perspective drawing online.

 

Here is Larry Prescott's link:
http://mms.d321.k12.id.us/webart/html/student%20work/main.html (Archive)

Larry Prescotts' Seventh Grade Drawing Lessons: http://mms.d321.k12.id.us/webart/html/lesson%20plans/drawing7.html (Archive)

One Point test: http://mms.d321.k12.id.us/webart/html/miscdocs/oneptest.html (Archive)
Seventh grade test: http://mms.d321.k12.id.us/webart/html/miscdocs/twoptest.html (Archive)
Perspective test results: http://mms.d321.k12.id.us/webart/html/student%20work/perstest.html (Archive)

 

And Andy DiConti' lessons:
http://home.lcusd.net/lchs/adiconti/surreal_perspective.htm - Also see the archive and name perspective.

Drawing One Point Perspective Interactive site by Harold Olejarz

One Point Perspective and Room Interiors Lesson Page lesson by Stephanie Slatner. Adapt this lesson to add the digital photos of student, magazine cut-outs. Turn into surreal compositions.

Drawing Art Studio -- resource for artists and art students that focus on the technical fundamentals of perspective, shading, color and painting. Step-by-step lessons for Linear Perspective -- Lessons on Color and Painting, too. Designed by Ralph Larmann from University of Evansville.

Leonardo da Vinci - Exploring Linear Perspective

Renaissance Connection Discovering Linear Perspective Interactive exercise to find vanishing points in works of art. How good were these masters?

Elements of Perspective - Detailed instructions from HandPrint.com

One Point Perspective Demonstration - from Sanford. Includes pdfstep-by-step handout. Here is a pdfhand-out for two point perspective

Perspective Drawing - from ArtyFactory

Introduction to Perspective - from Sackville High School, Nova Scotia, Canada. See demonstration for one point, two point and three point.

Three and Four Point Perspective Lesson Plan from Portfolio Series. Floating Art Museum - adaptable to different themes. Three and Four Point Perspective Letter Design from Portfolio.

Illustrated Guide to Drawing by John Hagan. See all of the Perspective Drawing Lessons.

Handout for two point perspective pdf - Simple box. you can save this one - or create your own. Use it as a guide for designing a one point perspective hand out.

"Zoomquilt" may inspire a lesson. Hold down mouse button and zoom in or out by moving the mouse. Also see "Zoomquilt 2" (preview before showing students - some images for mature students only). If any of these links are broken, try their new site.

 

Artists:

Yvonne Jacquette See examples of her work. A "bird's eye view" perspective. Her work might inspire a lesson.

 

Other Perspective Lessons on IAD

HOME | ABOUT | | ADVERTISE | NEWSLETTER | © Incredible Art Department