THE URBAN SKETCHING HANDBOOK UNDERSTANDING PERSPECTIVE Easy Techniques for Mastering Perspective Drawing on Location © 2016 Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc. Illustrations © Individual artists Nonattributed illustrations © Stephanie Bower First published in the United States of America in 2016 by Quarry Books, an imprint of Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc. 100 Cummings Center Suite 406-L Beverly, Massachusetts 01915-6101 Telephone: (978) 282-9590 Fax: (978) 283-2742 QuartoKnows.com Visit our blogs at QuartoKnows.com All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owners. All images in this book have been reproduced with the knowledge and prior consent of the artists concerned, and no responsibility is accepted by producer, publisher, or printer for any infringement of copyright or otherwise, arising from the contents of this publication. Every effort has been made to ensure that credits accurately comply with information supplied. We apologize for any inaccuracies that may have occurred and will resolve inaccurate or missing information in a subsequent reprinting of the book. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ISBN: 978-1-63159-128-0 Digital edition published in 2016 eISBN: 978-1-63159-192-1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Design: www.studioink.co.uk Cover images: front cover & right, Stephanie Bower Back cover: Gabriel Campanario Page layout: www.studioink.co.uk Printed in China THE URBAN SKETCHING HANDBOOK UNDERSTANDING PERSPECTIVE Easy Techniques for Mastering Perspective Drawing on Location STEPHANIE BOWER About This Series The Urban Sketching Handbook series takes you to places around the globe through the eyes and art of urban sketchers. Architecture and Cityscapes, People and Motion, Reportage and Documentary Drawing, and now Understanding Perspective—each book offers a bounty of lessons, tips, and techniques for sketching on location for anyone venturing to pick up a pencil and capture their world. (cid:196) EVGENY BONDARENKO Russia Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong 15.75” x 23.62” | 40 x 60 cm; Ink pencil, ink on watercolor paper; 2.5–3 hours. Two-point/worm’s eye view. CONTENTS About This Series 04 Introduction 07 KEYS I Basics .......................................................................... 13 II Basic Spatial Principles ............................................... 27 III Types of Perspectives ................................................. 41 IV Build a Sketch in Layers ............................................. 69 V More Perspective ........................................................ 81 GALLERIES I Wide-Angle Views in Perspective ................................. 96 II Textures in Perspective ................................................. 102 III Paintings in Perspective ............................................... 104 IV Learning in Perspective ............................................... 108 Challenges 110 Contributors 111 Acknowledgments 112 About the Author 112 | 7 INTRODUCTION Imagine you are standing in an amazing space, say the Pantheon in Rome. Snapping a quick photo like everyone else isn’t enough—you want to somehow capture this experience, but your group is leaving in only half an hour. What do you do? SKETCH! Sketching on location is powerful. You have to look at something really carefully to draw it. The process of drawing imprints what you see into your brain in such a way that years from now, the sounds of the people walking by, the scent of the rain, the feel of the warm air, and much more will all flood back when you look at your sketch. Urban Sketching is about capturing your experiences on paper, and more important, in your mind and heart. It’s a great way to learn and remember. That said, sketching on location can be challenging and overwhelming. Where do you start a sketch? How do you shrink the vast, busy scene in front of you onto your paper? How does perspective work? And where is that darn vanishing point? Understanding Perspective helps you bridge the theoretical world of perspective concepts with the real world of on-site sketching. All good sketches start with good bones. Perspective is simply a set of rules ”discovered” during the Italian Renaissance that allows us to translate what we see in our three-dimensional world onto a two-dimensional surface, such as a piece of paper or canvas. These principles provide us with a simple structure we can use to create the foundational lines in our sketches. Perspective doesn’t have to be frightening or something you avoid. Once you know some basics and a simple process, your sketches will be faster, easier, and more believable—and it will change the way you see the world, as you’ll see perspective everywhere! Best of all, when you leave Rome with sketchbook in hand, you’ll be bringing a bit of the Pantheon with you... (cid:193) Pantheon, Rome, Italy 16” x 5” | 40.5 x 12.5 cm; Pencil, watercolor, Pentalic Aqua Journal; about 45 minutes. One-point/eye-level view. 8 | Understanding Perspective Even in this digital age, learning to sketch what you see is an extremely valuable skill, whether you’re an architect, designer, or artist who draws from imagination, or someone who simply loves sketching over coffee at a neighborhood cafe. Thinking and drawing in perspective is powerful because it helps us understand spaces and places in the way we actually see and experience them. This handbook provides the tools you need to create a believable sense of perspective in your sketches, no matter what style or media you use, by looking at a variety of work produced by different sketchers from around the globe. It also includes a lot of thumbnail diagrams to explain the perspective concepts featured in various sketches. (cid:195) GUY MOLL France Saint-Aignan Tip 5” x 12” | 12.5 x 30.5 cm; Ink, watercolor; about 1.5 hours. Try using a colored One-point/eye-level view. pencil to draw right over the thumbnails as a way to better understand the information. (cid:193) DAVID CHAMNESS USA King Street Station: Compass Room 11” x 14” | 28 x 35.5 cm; Noodler’s Black Ink, Winsor & Newton watercolors, watercolor paper; 2 hours. Two-point/eye-level view.