ART 1010: Introduction to Art

Learning Goal: I’m working on a art question and need an explanation and answer to help me learn.

ART ACTIVITY: LINEAR PERSPECTIVE

During the Renaissance, from roughly the 14th to 16th century, there were many advances in science, math, philosophy, and art. One of the most monumental advances in art was the development of linear perspective. Linear perspective uses principles of math to realistically portray space and depth in art. Renaissance artists were largely concerned with painting realistic scenes, and linear perspective gave them a reliable method to accomplish this realism, which helped make their paintings all the more captivating!

First, watch the video above for a tutorial on how create a drawing utilizing linear perspective.

Now, go back and follow along with the instructor, going step-by-step to recreate the drawing in the video.

If you have art pencils, use those. If not, a standard pencil is fine. An eraser will be useful because you’ll be drawing guidelines and then erasing them. If you don’t have an eraser, you can careful to draw the guidelines very lightly. The instructor in the video is very skilled at drawing a relatively straight line, freehand. You may find using a ruler or some sort of straight-edge to be useful.

You will not be graded on your “artistic skill.” To get full points, you need to create a scene with railroad tracks, a house, a stream, and a row of trees, that follows the rules of linear perspective. Feel free to have fun with it, and customize the drawing with any other elements you want.