by Henk ter Heide on Saturday January 26, 2008
Using the box technique to draw a chair with arm rests.
It keeps surprising me how easy the box technique is. I’ve put this drawing ofs for a few days thinking I wouldn’t have the time to do it. But now I finally came around to doing it I found it only took about 10 minutes.
I drew the boxes a little more pronounced so you can see what I’m doing.
Basically the chair consists out of three boxes on top of each other. The bottom box shows where the legs should meet the floor and what angle the seat should have.
The middle box shows where the arm rests should come.
I was planning to use the top box to draw the angle of the top of the back rest. Only when I was drawing it I realized that you wouldn’t be able to see the top of the chair due to it’s hight.
Box chair with arm rests
For my next drawing I’m going to combine a table with one or more chairs. Should be interesting to see how to mix the perspective of different subjects in one drawing.
Using the box technique to draw a chair with arm rests. It keeps surprising me how easy the box technique is. I’ve put this drawing ofs for a few days...
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by Henk ter Heide on Tuesday January 22, 2008
Using the method of first drawing a box I drew a cupboard and a table.
This was much easier then I had expected. It really makes all the difference in the world if you know what you are doing.
For the cupboard I drew a large box with the horizon somewhere in the middle of the box. Then I added the doorknobs and the shape of the drawer and finished of with the legs.
It took me all of 5 minutes.
While I was scanning the drawing I realized that I had made a little mistake and drawn the hind leg in the wrong place. But when I added a box to measure where the hind leg should come I found that it was in the right place after all.
Cupboard perspective
The table was a little harder to do.
At first I wanted to draw curved leg. But I soon found that is more difficult the draw. Square legs come in the corner of the table, but I’m not sure where I should draw curved legs.
The other problem I had was that I almost forgot that the hind legs also should have perspective. For some reason it’s very tempting to only draw the big shapes (the bulk of the cupboard and the table top) in perspective and forget little things as legs.
Table perspective
Using the method of first drawing a box I drew a cupboard and a table. This was much easier then I had expected. It really makes all the difference in...
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by Henk ter Heide on Saturday January 19, 2008
Figuring out what was wrong with my earlier boxes and finding out how to use the technique to create nice drawings.
I didn’t even have to read. Just flipping the page and looking at a few pictures was enough to realize why the boxes I’ve been drawing the last few weeks where so distorted.
They were meant as an exercise to understand the geometrics of the box. By drawing the vanishing point on the paper you get a feel for the way the lines go.
But to get a real box you have to put the vanishing point far beyond the edge of you paper. Even far beyond the edge of your room. To get it right you have to imagine the vanishing point at a distance of some kilometers.
So here is a box the way it’s supposed to look.
From boxes… 1
After this I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to draw any more boxes for a while. But it turns out that the book has other ideas.
The whole point of learning to draw a box free hand is that you can use it to draw other objects that are more or less box shaped.
So here are some more boxes.
From boxes… 2
And here is the fun bit.
By only adding a few more lines and curves you can make a bed of these boxes.
…to beds
Figuring out what was wrong with my earlier boxes and finding out how to use the technique to create nice drawings. I didn’t even have to read. Just flipping the...
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by Henk ter Heide on Tuesday January 15, 2008
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by Henk ter Heide on Monday January 14, 2008
Experimenting with box perspective.
After doing my last study of perspective in a box I felt that something was wrong with the lid. But I couldn’t see what I was doing wrong.
I decided that if I really wanted to know in what direction I should draw the ribs of the lid of a box I should take a better look at a box.
After making a box with lid I found that none of my tables was high enough so I had to lay down on the floor to see the box from below.
But it was a fruitful experience. It turns out that I made a mistake in my last drawing.
After some experimenting with a tilted piece of paper I thought that the vanishing point of the ribs of the lid should be in the lower left corner. But that was wrong.
The vanishing point should be in the upper right corner far beyond the frame of the paper.
Practicing perspective box with lid 2
Obvious there are a few things wrong with this box.
For one thing I haven’t put the vanishing point high enough. The ribs of the lid should look as though they were almost parallel.
There’s also something wrong with the box it self. It’s strange the the right side of the box should look as though it has a different shape then the right side.
It took me a while to realize that this is the result of the strange view point.
My field of vision is much wider then that of most people, about 180 degrees instead of 45 or 90 degrees(?). (This is a symptom of autism.)
I never realized this until I did my drawing course early last year and the teacher told us that horizons are supposed to run horizontal. The horizon I see tends to curl upward at the left and right end.
For the pictures I see in my mind I’m finding that I often see them from strange view points which sometime causes strange perspective.
Practicing perspective box with lid 3
Here’s looking down on the box.
I changed the position of the vanishing point of the ribs of the lid. This time the vanishing point not only fell beyond the frame of the picture but even beyond my table. But it’s still to close.
I also realized that the line connecting the two ribs should have the right vanishing point.
The picture still looks a bit off but it’s better then the first one.
Experimenting with box perspective. After doing my last study of perspective in a box I felt that something was wrong with the lid. But I couldn’t see what I was...
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by Henk ter Heide on Thursday January 10, 2008
Practicing perspective.
The book advices to try to use free hand straight lines while drawing in perspective. But as my lines get longer I find it more difficult to draw straight. Which is a problem when you try to draw in perspective.
When drawing in perspective the point where lines intersect are very important. When drawing free hand the lines aren’t completely straight so these points change place.
At the moment I find it more important to understand perspective then to draw free hand so I’m using a ruler.
Practicing perspective box with lid
I think I drew the perspective of the box the way it should but there is something wrong with the lid.
Trying with a slanted piece of paper it seems to me that the vanishing point should be in the left lower corner. But drawing it that way it looks as thought something is wrong.
Maybe it’s just because it is a very large box.
A bigger problem is that the size doesn’t seems the match the box. The left side of the lid is the same length as the width of the box but it seems shorter. On the right side the lid seems shorter and is shorter.
Of course the importance of the intersecting lines is that you find the right rear corners by having the lines from the front corners to the vanishing point intersect. I’ll do the drawing tomorrow.
Practicing perspective part of a chair
The perspective of the part of the chair seems alright. The only problem is that I didn’t draw it to proportion. As a result it looks as though the right side of the chair is larger then the left side.
Looking at my drawing I just figured out how to calculate the proportion for the hind leg. I’ll try it tomorrow.
Practicing perspective. The book advices to try to use free hand straight lines while drawing in perspective. But as my lines get longer I find it more difficult to draw...
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by Henk ter Heide on Tuesday January 8, 2008
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
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...
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