In the world of drawing and painting, the thought of perspective sends many artists gnashing their teeth. Nothing tightens the creative juices into jello more than having to remember rules of horizon lines and vanishing points. That force in us demanding to be free conflicts with a need to get it right resulting more than once in an inevitable crash.
One of the most confusing concepts in linear perspective is what many call the horizon line, but in fact it is the eye level. The actual horizon as we know it in the real world may or may not be at our eye level, however it is our eye level on which points vanish in one-point and two-point perspective. So let's begin there:
Look at this photo:
In this scene, we see the earth-meeting-sky line (what we recognize as the horizon) above our eye level. That is not what we look for in creating linear perspective. In perspective drawing, the plane called "the horizon line" is not where earth meets sky, rather the observer's eye level.
TIP: When we need accurate perspective, before we can find any vanishing points, we've got to find our eye level. If some sort of architecture is within our view, we notice that at the eye level, all lines are horizontal, no matter if they are in front or to either side of where we are. Those lines above it lean downward towards it, and those below, lean upward.
Keeping this simple principle in mind, we can keep our paintings and drawings in perspective without having to learn a bunch of rules.
Happy painting,
