AVI1O Perspective

Perspective


Perspective is a method of representing subjects (and the individual parts of subjects) in a drawing, in such a way that they seem to recede into distant space, and appear smaller the farther they are away from you. When you are drawing trees and flowers, minor errors in perspective tend to be negligible. However, most human-made objects, people, and animals need to be drawn with proper perspective in order to appear believable and proportionately correct. Proportion is the relationship in size of one component of a drawing to another or others.




YOUR EYE LEVEL IS ON THE HORIZON
In art, a horizon line is a horizontal line (usually invisible in real life) sometimes referred to as eye level, that divides your line of vision when you look straight ahead. Objects below this line are below your eye level, and objects above it are above your eye level. Remember, your eye level and the horizon line, are one and the same. Look straight ahead (rather than up or down), and the horizon line is directly in front of you. Wherever you go, from the top of the highest mountain, to the lowest valley, your eye level always stays with you. The easiest way to identify the location of the horizon line in an actual scene is to visually mark it with your eye level. Try to find the horizon line in this example:

In the example below, notice how every line that travels away from your view travels to the view point (VP). See how perspective shapes the buildings, or how the buildings form perspective.