Painting Demo: Stage 10

Making sure my perspective is right!

Welcome back, everyone! Thanks for taking time to stop by. Well, much of today was spent ensuring that my perspective is correct. Any time an artist is painting architecture or geometric objects, he must make sure that his perspective is accurate. Otherwise, his painting can have disproportionate scale or a feeling of unbalance. Unfortunately, I don't have time to write a detailed discussion on perspective, but I will give some basics. The artist must determine where his picture's horizon line is. The horizon line will always be at the level of the viewer's eyes. Mine is marked in the photo with a green line. The artist must remember that all horizontally level lines that are parallel to each other will appear to converge at the same point on the horizon line. This point is called the "vanishing point." The gray lines in the photo represent the edges of the desk and bookshelf, which all need to meet at the same vanishing point. I still have a few bugs to work out with my perspective, but it's getting there!

Top of bookshelf turning corner

Originally, I wanted the top of my bookshelf to turn a corner. I was hoping this would create a line that would lead the viewer's eye to the girl's head. Unfortunately, after I painted it this way, I decided it wouldn't work. Both angles of the corner turned out to be nearly horizontal, which looked confusing.














 

Top of bookshelf modified

So... I opted to keep the top of my bookshelf straight. I'll have to do some planning to figure out what I'm going to place behind the girl's head now. Maybe I'll just put more of the wall back there; we'll have to see! By the way, in case you're wondering, I'm painting the bookshelf and books from life. The bookshelf is actually a faux fireplace mantle my parents were storing in their attic. And since I'm on the topic, I also painted the apples from life yesterday, although I failed to mention it.

Full canvas at Stage 10

Here's the full image of my painting so far. I hope all of you are having as much fun as I am! Happy painting, everyone, and have a fabulous weekend. I hope to see you back on Monday the 21st for more brush-wielding!