Drawing Flat Out

I am a Flat-Earther when it comes to drawing....   we have to draw on two dimensional surfaces so how can anything really be three dimensional in our drawings? Drawing itself is an illusion; there are no lines around things, only changes in colour or tone or distance, so we have to invent marks to show those changes. We capture optical illusions in our lines; objects don’t really become smaller as they move away from us, they only appear to.

This makes no sense to our beleaguered ‘left brains’ which will battle heroically to make things look the way they ‘should’. Struggling with perspective for hours and not knowing why the results still look so wrong is every student’s nightmare. Being shown how to construct disappearing perspective lines which meet on the horizon/eyeline makes the left brain happy, but it’s often hard to apply this accurately when faced with a real life, three dimensional subject. Lines tend to tilt in the completely opposite direction, we invent things we can’t see at all, and it just gets totally frustrating. 







There is a much easier way; drawing three-dimensional space so that it appears ‘real’ is almost simple if you tell yourself that the world is flat. You have to prove this first, so that your left brain will give up trying to ‘help’ you.

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Hold up a piece of string with a weight on the end of it – a plumbline – so that you can see past it to, say, a cup on a table beyond it. Close one eye and see that the cup ‘touches’ the string in space. Now close the other eye instead and see how much the cup appears to have moved! We humans have brilliant binocular vision with our two eyes, which gives us our sense of depth and distance. In this case though, we need one view, so close one eye and see the cup ‘touching’ the string. Now look down the string a little and see that the closest edge of the table ‘touches’ the string too, look down further and you will see the floor, the table legs perhaps – all ‘touching’ the string. Look up the string and you will see the further edge of the table and whatever else is in your view – a window perhaps, the view outside, miles down the road, all will ‘touch’ the string too! 

Everything is FLAT! This can be quite a revelation, especially when you apply the idea to perspective – lines can only tilt diagonally on your flat space, like the hands of a clock; they cannot go ‘into’ the surface of your paper at all.

Holding up your pencil at arms’ length and looking past it at the lines you want to ‘see’ – with one eye closed of course – works in the same way, but you have to remember not to point the pencil ‘into’ the surface; it has to remain flat in front of your eyes. 

sketch of St.Julians Bay - see how the boats go 'up' the picture?

This gives you not only a very useful tool to judge perspective with – it also gives you the greatest gift of all – you now LOOK LIKE AN ARTIST.

Do this with enough conviction (you don’t actually need to draw anything at all) and everyone will think you know exactly what you are doing. Result!

I am very excited about starting a new drawing group next month – 

The Saturday Morning Drawing Club 

Open to anyone wanting to practise and improve their drawing skills, you can come for one class at 20 euro or 85 euros for five sessions to be taken between April 5th and May 31st.

Every week we will explore a different approach to drawing and various materials. 

 It will be held in my studio in Manikata from 10 - 12.30.

CONTACT ME here if you are interested!!