Landscape Painting In Watercolor

Week 2 - Perspective

Pre-Class Info

No doubt you have noticed the effects of space and distance on the objects in your painting.

Quite simply, those objects that are farther away seem to be smaller than those that are nearer.

Linear Perspective is a system developed to accurately duplicate the effect of three-dimensional

distance on objects placed in our two-dimensional picture plane.

You have likely also noticed the effect of distance on color and value which is caused by light rays

passing through the microscopic elements and particles that make up our atmosphere.

Aerial Perspective (or Atmospheric Perspective) is the term used to describe this effect. Aerial

Perspective is not so much a system, like Linear Perspective, but a set of simple guidelines that

help us create the effect in our paintings.

Understanding Linear Perspective will support the illusion of distance in your underlying drawing.

Aerial Perspective will help when you are painting and making choices about color and value.

We’ll focus on getting a handle on both this week.

LINEAR PERSPECTIVE

Many people get very nervous when the word ‘perspective’ is mentioned. It seems difficult and

mysterious, but it is actually very simple.

Perspective is based on a very simple idea: objects that are farther from you appear to be smaller.

The objective – or “real” – world exists in three-dimensions: height, width and depth. Our

drawings and painting exist only in two dimensions: height and width.

Perspective, or linear perspective, is a system for representing the illusion of depth on a two-

dimensional surface.

Although it may seem scary, the principles are easy to learn and, really, essential to understand if

the goal is to accurately represent objects in a painting or drawing.

It would seem an easy task – just draw what we see. Our eyes see the objects as they appear,

with the apparent distortions of shape and size created by distance (depth). However, our brains

want to compensate for the apparent distortions – often resulting in objects that look misshapen

or perhaps even falling down!

The links below will open video tutorials on basic linear perspective. The links are clickable from

this document if you have it open in your PC or tablet.

Linear Perspective – Basic Concepts and Terminology

How To Draw One-Point Perspective

How To Draw Simple Two-Point Perspective

How To Draw Simple Three Point Perspective

Practical Perspective For Landscape Painting

I also recommend downloading this Linear Perspective Basics Info Sheet.

PRE-CLASS WORK

Watch the Linear Perspective video tutorials listed above. Find a landscape or seascape painting

of your own that somehow just doesn’t look right. There’s a good chance that one of the problems

is in the construction of perspective – as well as perhaps no clear separation of the Planes of

Space.

See if you can identify problems in perspective and make notes or even drawn corrections on a

separate sheet of paper. Email an image of the original work to me by Thursday night. On Friday,

I’ll take everyone’s work and try to make changes in perspective and in separation of planes of

space for this week’s critique. The critique should be complete and available by Friday evening.

I’ll email a link to the critique as soon as it’s ready.

Bring your original painting, along with any notes or drawn corrections you have made, to class.

IN CLASS

We’ll work on the painting on the next page. It probably looks familiar! The layout is the scene

used to illustrate the idea of simple planes of space for Week 1. There is a pencil layout of this

painting on the last page. Transfer one copy to watercolor paper – either by tracing or free-hand

drawing.

https://vimeo.com/459334973/81b0f05ba9https://vimeo.com/388486040/1e9e6b61b4https://vimeo.com/389617912/ec500dcf46https://vimeo.com/389625964/164b8fbddfhttps://vimeo.com/389625964/164b8fbddfhttps://watercolormethods.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/1.28.166-PerspectiveBasics.pdf

IN-CLASS PROJECT REFERENCE