Understanding Architecture Through Drawing

(lily) #1

only gives the townscape sketch a certain subtlety, but
helps reinforce the sense of perspective established by
the angled lines.
There are some further useful tips to add to the
lessons of perspective drawing. One concerns windows:
those disappearing some distance down the street need
not be drawn as compressed rectangles; a simple vertical
line will suffice. Likewise, if the detail of, say, paving is
shown in the foreground, it is quite unnecessary to
attempt to show it in the background, and a mere hint will
be enough in the middle ground.
If you are going to depart from full scientific per-
spective drawing with its complicated rotating picture
planes (not only cumbersome to put into practice, but
unrealistic in the field), then you will have to use your eye


to fix the depth of elements within the picture. The
well-trained eye will in time prove as reliable as is
necessary but you can assist it by using a pencil to
establish the angle or proportion of height to width
(in perspective). By holding the pencil and using
the thumb as a sliding measure you should achieve
accuracy to within 10 per cent, which is good enough for
location sketching. However, once you have est–
ablished the bay width or the depth of the building and
are happy with it visually (your measurements should
always be checked against how it looks), then you will
discover that the angle of the diagonal will remain
constant. This will allow you to tackle complex subjects
such as street arcades or the column spacings in the aisle
of a church.

4.10
A grasp of perspective is
necessary to achieve drawings
of this difficulty. Notice how
shade provides an essential
three-dimensionality. The
subject is central Birmingham
as drawn by Francis Tibbalds.
(Francis Tibbalds)

44 Understanding architecture through drawing

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