Marshall's 1994 Perspective Drawing Series exercises

perspective_practice.md

Hi, these are unofficial exercises that I wrote out for myself to practice after watching Marshall's 1994 perspective drawing series. Hope it'll be useful for you too!

Right angles (lessons 2-4)

Vanishing points

Draw boxes for each:

• 1-point perspective
• 2-point perspective
• 3-point perspective

Vary the distance between the vanishing points to create similar effects of standard lens, wide angle lens, fisheye lens

Interior and exterior corners

Draw different views of your rooms in your home while making sure you capture at least one of each:

• 1-point perspective
• 2-point perspective
• Contains one corner of the room
• Contains two corners of the room
• Contains both floor and ceiling
• Contains furniture/items not parallel to walls
• Contains something hanging from ceiling right above an object on the floor

Note: don’t waste time drawing details, get the big picture, the big angles of furniture. Marshall’s actual class exercises were 1.5min per scene (?!!)

“The secret to perspective is to be able to draw the unseen ear”

• Draw a head with unseen ear in a different angle than in the lecture.
  • Repeat a few times for 2-point and 3-point perspectives

Drawing people standing in different depths along a path

• 1-point: Draw 5 people of same height (eg 5ft5) in different spots along the path
• 2-point: Not covered in lecture, but try!

Circles and ellipses (lesson 5-7)

• Draw cylinders for each: 1-point, 2-point, 3-point perspectives (start with boxes).
  • Vary the distance between the vanishing points to create similar effects of standard lens, wide angle lens, fisheye lens
• Finding the center of ellipses and center of the “circle”
  • Use the ellipses from the previous exercise of cylinders
  • Draw the major and minor axes
• Finding the angles of an angled circle
  • Draw ellipses in 1, 2 and 3-point perspectives
  • Add the clock numbers on the ellipses -
    • Use the flattened whole circle trick
    • Use half circle instead of whole circle
• Finding angles on cylinders
  • Write text on cylinders
• Finding angles on spheres
  • Write a letter on each sphere
  • Challenge: write a letter on the inside of spheres
  • Ultra challenge (Robert Beverly Hales): write letters on and inside EGGS

Right angles and circles combined (lesson 8)

• Draw open doors from wall in 1-point perspective, and 2-point perspective
• Draw boxes in 2-point perspective with open flap (one flap, two flaps)

Inclined planes and the vanishing trace (lesson 9)

• Draw houses with a roof in 2-point perspective
• Add planks leaning on the houses
• Draw stacked staircases like in the lesson (ignore drawing steps, we didn’t learn how to do that yet)

Depth measuring systems (lesson 10-11)

• Draw staircases in 2-point perspective, make equal steps for the staircases
  • Use all 5 measuring systems, each staircase using a different measuring system
• Draw rectangular floors in 1-point perspective and divide the floor into horizontal chunks (~3-5 divisions)
  • Use all 5 systems to divide the floors, each floor using a different measuring system

Plan projection (lesson 12)

• Do plan projections of things more complex than a single box, eg like an L-shaped box, or a very simple house

Thanks mate