Perspective and Foreshortening

This photo is a fun example of perspective and foreshortening.

First, perspective: see how Licorice’s tongue is fanning out as it gets closer to the photographer? (moi) Partly that is due to the tongue stretching in back, but it is also because objects appear wider, or fan out, as they approach the viewer. This is important to know when we are drawing a couch head on, for example. We know the couch is a rectangle, but in two dimension, it will appear to fan out in front as it approaches the viewer. This is the same with building facades, and the walls in a room. Notice the drawing at the end of this post of Westminster Abbey. The towers angle towards a common “vanishing point” far above the viewers head. Even though our brains know that the walls of the towers are parallel, for sketching purposes, we need to know that they appear to angle towards each other to the viewer on the ground. Tilting them slightly in my drawing, I was able to achieve more accuracy.

Next, foreshortening. We know that the Licorice’s nose is much smaller than his head, but if you measure his nose in this photo compared to the length of his head, the nose appears one-third the length of his head. That is what is meant by foreshortening — that the length of the object is obscured due of its straight-on angle, and the end approaching the viewer appears larger than it really is.

Not to mention, those are some pretty nice teeth. Which has nothing to do with our sketching. :)

Next up, our beloved Poppy in a foreshortened pose:

Of course her head was bigger than her paws, but from this vantage point, it appears her paws, especially the one closest to the viewer, is twice the length of her head.

Measuring with a ruler or your pencil is a good way to override what our mind expect to see and help us get the drawing right. This video provides a simple method of using our drawing tool to measure.

It’s helpful to know these drawing rules so that we can override the information in our brain about size and parallels and render more accurate sketches. As we practice, we can do this more quickly.

Happy sketching!

xoxo

Westminster Abbey