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Understanding perspective by drawing perspective.
A few years ago I read a story about the first person to get a sight saving operation.
This man was born with a form of cataracts. By the time he was forty he was chosen for the operation that made it possible for him to see for the first time in his life.
You would think that he was ecstatic, but he wasn’t. He was bombarded with colors and shapes he didn’t understand and only confused him.
At first he tried recognizing shapes by feeling them and that did the trick. But only if he was in a confined environment with limited visual information. Very soon he found to go to his work he had to close his eyes and move around by touch to be able to understand the world.
After a few month visual his cortex shut down and he was blind again.
The last few weeks I’ve been reading and working from the book “Drawing at the right side of the brain” which theorizes that if you can learn to see enough detail to draw what ever you see.
That always seemed to be a reasonable theory. Even though being autistic means that I already see a lot of detail I thought that this book would help me to improve my drawing skills.
But a few days ago I got stuck.
Early last year I took a drawing course and read a lot about vanishing points. To draw a cube in perspective you have to extend the line into a imaginary vanishing point.
Sound logical. But as such things go. If you don’t use them you forget them.
So when I tried to draw a picture of my chair a few days ago I knew that something was wrong. Lines that I knew to be parallel didn’t seem to be. Parts of the chair I knew to have the same dimension didn’t seem to have. I didn’t understand why I didn’t have room to draw some ornament.
Doing this perspective drawing made me realize that you can look and measure all you want, but if you don’t understand what it is that you’re seeing. You won’t be able to draw it.
Perspective practice
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