TIP 5/10: When Buildings Twist, Multiple Vanishing Points!

Welcome to a series of 10 Sketching Tips!

#5: When Buildings Twist

Key to this concept is to remember a basic principle of perspective, that lines that are parallel to each other appear to converge to the same point.

Quick trip back to Venice. I'm standing on the upper level of the Basilica San Marco. Using my pencil, I extend the receding lines on the left side to find one vanishing point on my eye level line.

Then I use my pencil to extend the lines of the building on the right, and what happens? I get TWO vanishing points, both on my eye level line!  

So, what does this mean? It means the two buildings are actually not parallel to each other in plan (like a map view)... each facade has generated it's own vanishing point. 
Key also is that BOTH vanishing points are on my eye level line--yet another good reason to mark where your eye level line (aka Horizon Line) is located in your sketch!

Does using the two VP's for this sketch make a huge difference? Probably not, as they are so close to each other. The only way I could have realized this was by drawing it!! BUT this concept in perspective is extremely helpful to understand when you are sketching anywhere that was not built on a grid plan, like most of Europe, India, and many other places in the world.


Let's look quickly at another example in Italy. This is Civita di Bagnoregio, an amazing tiny hilltown north of Rome where I teach a sketching workshop every summer. This view is of the narrow main street behind the church. The buildings twist and turn in plan along a curving pedestrian street.

This is a diagram I made in the workshop to explain the concept of multiple vanishing points. I used my pencil to extend the vanishing lines (usually using the tops or bottoms of windows or stone courses), and lo and behold, I get three separate VP's, each on my eye level line, one for each building.

Here is a break down of the three VP's...

In summary, it's easiest to remember that when:
--the building rotates in plan toward the left, the VP shifts to the left along your eye level line
--the building rotates in plan toward the right, the VP also shifts to the right along your eye level line.

I hope this explanation helps! Happy Sketching!
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Here they come, 10 Top Sketching Tips

Are you ready?

To jumpstart summer sketching in the northern parts of the world, and because the Urban Sketchers symposium starts in about 3 weeks (so sorry not to see everyone this year, but look for me in Asia in October!), I'm launching a series of 10 posts with my favorite 10 sketching and perspective tips!

I often see lots of the same questions and challenges come up time and again in workshops, so I decided to collect some of my responses into these posts. 

Thanks to my friends Marc Taro Holmes, Liz Steel, and Suhita Shirodkar who did a month(!) of beautiful painting sketches called "Direct to Watercolor", you are my inspiration for this.

And of course, I invite you to sign up for future blog posts.

Thanks for your interest --  I hope you find these helpful!
Stephanie

Welcome to Drawing Perspectives

Thank you for checking out my new blog, Drawing Perspectives!  On this blog, I hope to post my perspectives on sketching, painting, teaching, as well as how-to's on drawing and watercolor, travel photos, and finding that illusive vanishing point... 

Where could this be?  It is even more stunning in person.

I'm Stephanie Bower, and I live and work in Seattle, Washington.  I've been an architect and architectural illustrator for 25 years or so, both here in Seattle and before that in New York City. I've been traveling and sketching for a long time! I've also taught perspective sketching for many years at Parsons The New School for Design in New York, briefly at the University of Washington (thank you, Frank Ching, for that opportunity!), and currently in the Design Department at Cornish College of the Arts.  As hand drawing disappears from the practice of architecture, I feel it is more important than ever to make sure the ability to draw stays alive and well in the profession.

Sketching attracts crowds in Kathmandu, Nepal, November 2011.

I have the great good fortune to have won an award, The Gabriel Prize, which will allow me to spend 3 months in Paris this summer, sketching and painting architecture and landscape every day--quite literally a dream come true.  This blog will be my online diary as I explore Paris, travel to Italy to teach a sketching workshop, and to Barcelona to participate in the Urban Sketcher's Symposium in July.

Thanks, and I hope you will stay tuned!

+  For more information on architectural illustration work, go to www.stephaniebower.com 
+  For more information or to sign up for the Civita Sketching Workshop 2013, go to www.stephaniebower.com and click on the link.
+  To view blog posts as a correspondent for Seattle Urban Sketchers, go to www.seattle.urbansketchers.org
+  To view a library of field and travel sketches, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/83075812@N07/
+  To view information about the Gabriel Prize, go to 
http://www.gabrielprize.org/
+  To view information on the KRob Architectural Delineation Competition that is now on display at the Dallas AIA, go to 
http://krobarch.com/winners.asp?winner_year=2012