Drawing Boards

A freehand sketching exercise to help give a 'feel' for how Oblique Perspective can be used to view objects.

• Take a sheet of paper and a drawing pencil.
• Draw an horizontal line and mark a near its centre - these will be the Central Vanishing Point (CVP) and it sits on the Eye Line or Horizon Line.
• Imagine you are looking at a the edge of a drawing board and draw a thin rectangle astride the horizon line.
• Project copies of this rectangle directly above and below it.
• Join the corners of each rectangle to the CVP.
• Make a judgement about where to draw the horizontal lines to represent the rear edges of the drawing boards.
• Use lining in and shading to give the impression you are looking above and below a drawing board.

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Note: Even though you have drawn all rectangles the same size directly above each other, you may notice they appear wider as they cross the Eye Line. This is a common Optical Illusion and artists compensate for it in their paintings. Also, in Greek architecture, tall pillars were made thinner in the middle so they might look parallel when viewed.

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