Project 3 - Perspective
Coming up:
I draw some squares, we sketch about 40 different posters for a play and as seagull finds its way onto my designs.
I draw some squares, we sketch about 40 different posters for a play and as seagull finds its way onto my designs.
Grant Wood.
Yes, we are now onto a new project starting this week, which is all about Perspective.
To start off, I will take a look at a couple artists as a little bit of research before we make a start on applying perspective into my work. The first artist I will take a look at today is Grant Wood who really understands the use of perspective and uses it in a unique way which stands out and works really well.
His take on this use of perspective has worked really well from the moment he started playing around with this Wallace & Gromit esk style of design. He uses the horizon line in the same was as you and I apart from in one dramatic way. He tends to use the hills through the fields to set the horizon line, which is quite unique, but then overall, he lets this weird style take over all of his work and gives us this really weird style of perspective, perhaps a perspective you wouldn’t usually see in the real world, so in that case it is quite refreshing to see this new take on real world everyday objects.
Yes, we are now onto a new project starting this week, which is all about Perspective.
To start off, I will take a look at a couple artists as a little bit of research before we make a start on applying perspective into my work. The first artist I will take a look at today is Grant Wood who really understands the use of perspective and uses it in a unique way which stands out and works really well.
His take on this use of perspective has worked really well from the moment he started playing around with this Wallace & Gromit esk style of design. He uses the horizon line in the same was as you and I apart from in one dramatic way. He tends to use the hills through the fields to set the horizon line, which is quite unique, but then overall, he lets this weird style take over all of his work and gives us this really weird style of perspective, perhaps a perspective you wouldn’t usually see in the real world, so in that case it is quite refreshing to see this new take on real world everyday objects.
Karan Singh.
Singh might be the most known for his perspective work, but I have been a fan of his work for quite a while, and he does occasionally use perspective in his work that makes his works stand out, especially in the colours that he tends to use. Karan Singh’s work has influenced a lot of my work over the past few years so it is only fair that I add him into some of my research for this project.
While this is digital and was probably made using the Perspective Grid Tool in Illustrator, it is still quite cool and aesthetically pleasing to look at and he would have had to have at least a small amount of understanding about perspective before making some of his work.
If you take a look at the big staircase work in the middle, you can see that the shapes on the sides are mostly rectangular and all of the angles on the side of the objects go off to a vanishing point, one in the dead middle, and then one just off of the side of the work, then it looks like he was able to flip the image from the middle as it is pretty symmetrical, which means that everything on the sides don’t look too wonky thanks to having a vanishing point in the middle.
Singh might be the most known for his perspective work, but I have been a fan of his work for quite a while, and he does occasionally use perspective in his work that makes his works stand out, especially in the colours that he tends to use. Karan Singh’s work has influenced a lot of my work over the past few years so it is only fair that I add him into some of my research for this project.
While this is digital and was probably made using the Perspective Grid Tool in Illustrator, it is still quite cool and aesthetically pleasing to look at and he would have had to have at least a small amount of understanding about perspective before making some of his work.
If you take a look at the big staircase work in the middle, you can see that the shapes on the sides are mostly rectangular and all of the angles on the side of the objects go off to a vanishing point, one in the dead middle, and then one just off of the side of the work, then it looks like he was able to flip the image from the middle as it is pretty symmetrical, which means that everything on the sides don’t look too wonky thanks to having a vanishing point in the middle.
Antonio Sant‘Elia.
Antonio was a really unique artist when it came to perspective drawings as he didn’t just look at a house in front of him and use his knowledge to recreate it, no, instead he went all out and made his own futuristic styled buildings, often like a power station sort of thing, and they just looked really cool. The part I like the most is the weird little line details that he left in along the edges to show the building actually being designed, to me this just shows off a whole other angle onto an already unique style of work.
You may also think that this style of building feels a little bit familiar, and that could possibly be the fact that the makers of Star Wars really liked his work and decided to create some very similar looking buildings in some of the films, so in a way he was the inspiration to one of the most well known movie franchises.
Yeah overall, I really like his work, and especially once he has gone over some little details in watercolour afterwards too, just works a treat in my head.
Antonio was a really unique artist when it came to perspective drawings as he didn’t just look at a house in front of him and use his knowledge to recreate it, no, instead he went all out and made his own futuristic styled buildings, often like a power station sort of thing, and they just looked really cool. The part I like the most is the weird little line details that he left in along the edges to show the building actually being designed, to me this just shows off a whole other angle onto an already unique style of work.
You may also think that this style of building feels a little bit familiar, and that could possibly be the fact that the makers of Star Wars really liked his work and decided to create some very similar looking buildings in some of the films, so in a way he was the inspiration to one of the most well known movie franchises.
Yeah overall, I really like his work, and especially once he has gone over some little details in watercolour afterwards too, just works a treat in my head.
So, to start off this project after all of the research, we were going to practice and experiment with out actual one-point perspective skills. The way I was drawing these were by starting off with the horizon line and then selecting a point which would be the vanishing point, so for all of the shapes that I draw, I would draw a line from each corner through to the vanishing point, and then to finish off all of the shapes, I would go back in and draw a line vertically on the lines I just drew to the vanishing point, and then just simply join them up around all of the sides to create a very believable 3D shape.
By pushing the boat out on our perspective skills, it was now time to do something that looks a little like a railway line, with which I just simply draw one horizontal line, and draw a faint line from the bottom left of the railway line so that the line goes through the centre of the horizontal line that I just drew. From here, you can draw another horizontal line from the point that the faint line crosses the right railway line and just keep repeating that process and that will eventually result in quite a cool railway line effect as if it is fading into the distance with a very realistic distance between all of the pillars.
Pushing this railway line lookalike further, you can start to create objects, and is a really handy skills to use if you wanted to make some objects with a set distance between them. It is pretty much done by the same technique however you can set the distances between all of the lines to whatever you want and can give you some very believable 3D objects with the same distance between then.
Using one-point perspective, you can create some grids set at angles which you can then be able to translate a flat square drawing into something reminiscent of a different perspective. By using the same railway line technique, you can set a grad of X amount of squares, and can have a rough drawing of a lovely garden on the grids, with which you are able to in on your new perspective grid and fill in square by square the same lovely garden by looking back and forwards to the flat and basic layout of the lovely garden on the original flat square.
While I'm there talking about the grids, you can also feel free to create a chess board because why not? spend time colouring every other square and you will eventually end up with quite a cool chess board lookalike in the form of perspective.
I think this is my one and only attempt of a cylinder so far, but for my first attempt of one, I was well chuffed with how it came out. While it might not be the clearest overall in terms of the actual cylinder, it still looks like a detailed perspective drawing and I really like the rough lines and the box that goes around the outside of the circle, and it could be something that I experiment more with later in the project and/or year. Yes, we were tasked to add light and shadows to this cylinder, but I really liked how this one turned out so I will give that another go at some point.
Moving onto two-point perspective, and straight away there is not much difference apart from adding in a second vanishing point when setting up the drawing. Then, instead of drawing the flat side of the object, just simply draw down one side of it, with which you can then go in and draw the faint lines to each vanishing point from each point of the side of the object that I just drew. Then, just like the last few drawings, you can round off the object by linking all of the edges together.
Same again here, but just on a larger scale as if it much closer to you, and this one makes the feel of perspective feel much greater and more believable.
Once again, it is pretty much the same here, however I just messed up the height of it so it doesn't feel like a very good perspective drawing as it looks almost flat on the top.
This is my attempt at freehand drawing using our new knowledge of perspective, and well I’m not the best at sketching, let’s say that. The big one in the middle looked a bit off as I didn’t give it a top to the shape which makes it look a bit off, then on the right we have one which has fairly okay shadows and light, but the overall shape still looked a bit odd and I didn’t quite line it up right. Then the one on the left, well I don’t even know what that one was, it turned out looking like a brick but still, I am fairly happy as I know actually understand the use of perspective.
The Seagull.
To round off this three week long project, we have been tasked to create a poster however, we are not to finish the poster. Yes, I promise that makes sense, we will be showing our new hand drawing skills to create the visuals for a poster, so loads of different sketches for different ideas, a bit of colour as if you were going to show them to a client for some feedback. After we have got a wide range of ideas, we’ll be picking three and will start to refine the ideas until we have our favourites made a bit bigger and then present them on Friday.
In terms of what the poster is for, we were given a list of some plays and then would pick one, research it and then create some poster designs for it. Now, me not having ever watched a play, I had no idea what to choose so I went with The Seagull as it says seagull in the title, and because I heard it was Russian which I had some ideas for creating posters in the classic Russian styled posters.
It is usually a good idea to take a gander at some actual posters for the play that have been used, so that is what I have done here, these were just some that caught my eyes, and while they are all mostly different, they have a common factor being the use of a seagull in the design, so I think you can probably guess what I will try and include in my designs.
Other notable points about these, well there seems to be a fairly consistent theme of a Russian style within them, and what I mean by that is they are quite bold, and they just are designed to make you think of Russia when you see them, which is all done by looking at some classic posters done in this style, which I’ll be looking at shortly, and then using little nods to them to almost remind you of them so that you don’t need to get confused by the design, you can just naturally think of Russia.
To round off this three week long project, we have been tasked to create a poster however, we are not to finish the poster. Yes, I promise that makes sense, we will be showing our new hand drawing skills to create the visuals for a poster, so loads of different sketches for different ideas, a bit of colour as if you were going to show them to a client for some feedback. After we have got a wide range of ideas, we’ll be picking three and will start to refine the ideas until we have our favourites made a bit bigger and then present them on Friday.
In terms of what the poster is for, we were given a list of some plays and then would pick one, research it and then create some poster designs for it. Now, me not having ever watched a play, I had no idea what to choose so I went with The Seagull as it says seagull in the title, and because I heard it was Russian which I had some ideas for creating posters in the classic Russian styled posters.
It is usually a good idea to take a gander at some actual posters for the play that have been used, so that is what I have done here, these were just some that caught my eyes, and while they are all mostly different, they have a common factor being the use of a seagull in the design, so I think you can probably guess what I will try and include in my designs.
Other notable points about these, well there seems to be a fairly consistent theme of a Russian style within them, and what I mean by that is they are quite bold, and they just are designed to make you think of Russia when you see them, which is all done by looking at some classic posters done in this style, which I’ll be looking at shortly, and then using little nods to them to almost remind you of them so that you don’t need to get confused by the design, you can just naturally think of Russia.
So, what is The Seagull? Good question.
I have never been to see a play as I find them a little hard to understand and appreciate, and I have definitely never heard of this one! The reason I chose this play to create a poster for was simply because I heard that is was a Russian comedy, and while I don't know anything about Russian comedy, I know that Russian styled posters are amazing and I always enjoy designing in that style. So, this play is called The Seagull because it has a Seagull in it funnily enough, well there is more to it than that but I can be funny if I want to be. In the play, Treplev shoots a Seagull and then gives it to Nina and tells her that one day he will be dead in her honour just like the Seagull, as the Seagull represents freedom and security, I mean it's not something I would go out and do for a girl but each to their own.
I took a bunch of other screenshots of other information I looked at before starting on my sketches which is some of the basic information about the play, along with some reviews and websites holding breakdowns of the play so I could understand the play before creating posters for it.
I have never been to see a play as I find them a little hard to understand and appreciate, and I have definitely never heard of this one! The reason I chose this play to create a poster for was simply because I heard that is was a Russian comedy, and while I don't know anything about Russian comedy, I know that Russian styled posters are amazing and I always enjoy designing in that style. So, this play is called The Seagull because it has a Seagull in it funnily enough, well there is more to it than that but I can be funny if I want to be. In the play, Treplev shoots a Seagull and then gives it to Nina and tells her that one day he will be dead in her honour just like the Seagull, as the Seagull represents freedom and security, I mean it's not something I would go out and do for a girl but each to their own.
I took a bunch of other screenshots of other information I looked at before starting on my sketches which is some of the basic information about the play, along with some reviews and websites holding breakdowns of the play so I could understand the play before creating posters for it.
Russian posters.
Here we go then, the things I have mentioned so many times, the style of classic Russian posters. There’s nothing to dislike about these, they are all so bold, well thought out and just work really well. In terms of colours, there is a common theme of red, black and an off white colour which just work fantastically well together. There tends to be quite a gritty style to the main focus point of the posters, and what I mean by that is their use of textures over the designs that just works so well with the colours and the overall design style. I have also noticed that a lot of artwork in the designs tend to be placed above you, what I mean by that is that they have used their knowledge of perspective and placed their drawings to make it feel like you are looking up at them, which because of this, feels very Russian and I think it works really well, so these are all points that I can drag into my design ideas through the week.
Here we go then, the things I have mentioned so many times, the style of classic Russian posters. There’s nothing to dislike about these, they are all so bold, well thought out and just work really well. In terms of colours, there is a common theme of red, black and an off white colour which just work fantastically well together. There tends to be quite a gritty style to the main focus point of the posters, and what I mean by that is their use of textures over the designs that just works so well with the colours and the overall design style. I have also noticed that a lot of artwork in the designs tend to be placed above you, what I mean by that is that they have used their knowledge of perspective and placed their drawings to make it feel like you are looking up at them, which because of this, feels very Russian and I think it works really well, so these are all points that I can drag into my design ideas through the week.
Bauhaus.
One of my favourite styles of design has been Bauhaus, not just as it is quite similar to the classic Russian style, but because of the simplistic shapes and the colours. The way they are always just slanted to one side works really well for the style and messages that they send through the designs. It is recognisable to pretty much anyone who looks at it as it has been around for many years and make quite the impact when it was introduced and was very popular. They are all aesthetically pleasing to look at and I just think they work really well.
One of my favourite styles of design has been Bauhaus, not just as it is quite similar to the classic Russian style, but because of the simplistic shapes and the colours. The way they are always just slanted to one side works really well for the style and messages that they send through the designs. It is recognisable to pretty much anyone who looks at it as it has been around for many years and make quite the impact when it was introduced and was very popular. They are all aesthetically pleasing to look at and I just think they work really well.
To start our drawings and sketches of our first ideas of this task of creating some poster designs for The Seagull, we were told to make a wide range of little stamp sized sketches to see how many different ideas I could come up with before coming up with the top three. As expected, these were very rough drawings and was the first time that I have sketched out some ideas before going digital so this was very new to me. I am very aware that next time I need to add some colours to these designs as it would be the first thing a client would see in the real world and they must be able to know exactly what is going on before I have to explain it, and the best way of making something clear is by using colours to make them stand out rather than just a page full of pencil drawings.
The next stage of our sketches was to start refining the designs, so by trying different typefaces, layouts, colours and the overall feel of the designs, so to start off, I chose these Russian/Japanese styled designs as I really like the idea of how these could look. While the perspective wasn't quite accurate in these designs, I quite liked the thought of you looking up at the Seagull, as that was often a style adopted in these style of designs, along with the thought of the actual meaning of the Seagull, it being a metaphor kind of, I don't know, it looked cool and that be enough to catch your eyes!
Now we move into the Bauhaus/Art Deco styled poster designs and for this one I really liked the angled lines with different rectangles on them, as it was something a little different and fitted the style quite nicely, however I am aware that it doesn't really fit the meaning of the play, and that is usually quite important in poster designs.
Sticking with the Bauhaus/Art Deco style, This one was set at an angle where you were still able to read the title, including lots of bright primary colours and bold shapes which would allow the design to stand out really well however, once again it doesn't really fit the theme of the film.
Returning to the use of a Seagull, I thought it could be interesting to create a Seagull out of basic shapes to create something once again in the Bauhaus style. This one was more guesswork than anything else, but I was pretty happy with how this happy accident turned out, but I just wasn't too keen on the use of colours for this one, and people may confuse the Seagull for a Swan so it was probably not the best design for the actual poster.
Going for something a little more comforting now over the strict Russian and Bauhaus style, I just went for the simple slipstreaming Seagulls flying over the sunset. This one also doesn't represent the play perfectly, but as a design, I thought it could have stood out well and was quite nice to look at.
So, my final three designs were these, no surprises there after my refinement, and overall I was fairly happy with the outcomes given the limited time to come up with them, however I think I could have come up with something that could relate to the play a bit more, maybe with a comedy aspect. One thing to note when scaling up these designs, you need to be careful with different thicknesses of pens, the overall layout and the way how things look good from a distance but not when you blow them up in size. The angled lines are a good example of these as there are way more of them now, and they aren't quite ideal as they don't stand out as much now.