Measuring

Hello and happy sketching,

Now it’s getting a bit more serious. Whereas we used to concentrate on lines and perspective, we often neglected proportions. Most of the time this is not so bad, because if you work observationally, it usually works itself out. But the human brain has a tendency to interpret things according to their importance. And that means that important things are often displayed larger. There is a technical term for this: perspective of meaning.

You can see it very clearly in this child’s drawing.

But we keep as much distance as possible from children’s drawings, because they are often toxic in a professional environment. We draw because we want to evoke a realistic idea.

Exactly, you already know that – not with realistic finished pictures, but with sketches in a loose style, so that the viewer can call up in his mind the picture he experiences as perfect.

If we want to draw things, or especially people, whose character traits depend on proportions, we have to get them right.

To do this, we need the help of the ray theorem.

In this illustration, you can see how it works. The most important thing to remember is the picture plane. Exactly. The picture plane is a flat surface, so imagine a pane of glass standing vertically between you and the object you want to draw. And you can imagine your sketch as if it were a drawing on that plane of glass.

This means that however you measure, you must hold the pencil so that it is always flat on this picture plane. You can’t tilt the pencil into space.

A bit hard to imagine: it can be. That’s why we’re going to do an exercise.

Look at the pictures carefully. They will help you to understand the exercise.