Ditch your rulers—this simple trick by Instagram user @architectdrw demonstrates how to sketch a two-point perspective drawing with just a piece of elastic string and a paperclip. First you tape the edges of the string to where the horizon line goes, then simply move the paper clip around to get accurate perspective lines. It’s a great solution for quick sketches (assuming you still draw by hand), and it's getting a ton of attention online.
Check it out below:
13 Comments
Nice!
This has been all over my social media lately, and I've been quiet, but....
Is it really, terribly, horribly "You kids get offa my lawn!"-ish of me to say if you learn to draw perspective properly this little tool is really not needed anyway? Try the Kirby Lockhard method, how I learned - it's really easy and fairly accurate assuming you make initial decisions wisely.
Wouldn't the shifting of the paperclip left to right along the horizon actually alter the perspective? I was taught that perspective should point to a single point. This surely plots a number of perspective points.
"You kids get offa my lawn too!"
...or just stop with the life hacks and learn to draw free hand.
I don't mind this. Anything that allows a student or a non-graphically oriented person (or joshuamorison) the ability to understand a concept like two-point perspective is good. I imagine, like any drawing method, eventually you stop using the method's defined process and start drawing freehand. But you have to understand the structure behind the freehand drawing - I think this helps. More ways of learning something, and more exposure to how perspective works, is not a bad thing imo.
"Stay on my lawn!" I guess?, I don't know what the counter is here...
Yeah, you're right, Andrew. I learned the Kirby method which taught me the *rules* of perspective. If this method teaches those lawn-destroying kids (j/k) the rules of perspective you are right that they will eventually not need it, anyway.
Here's a sample of Kirby method:
Sweet! My high school art teacher first taught me to draw one point perspectives. The video is a two-point perspective. I don't know what the big deal is. The kids can draw on my lawn if they need a place.
Wish I'd known about it back in the day when I used cotton thread in a similar fashion-very clever this aid is!
This technique doesn't abnegate the value of learning the principles of perspective. Clearly the guy is not doing any measuring; it's all "eye-balled." But if you've laid out a measured perspective accurately you can sketch in the details very fast this way
How do you measure when drawing a perspective anyways? Besides a grid or eyeballing it. What am I missing?
tintt, I'm not sure it would be accurate to call it measuring*, but if you have a plan and an elevation there is a process to create an accurate two point perspective.
Here is a youtube video of the basics, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj9MBwo61nU. It gets more fun when you play around with the positioning of the station point, picture plane, horizon line, etc. That is when you can begin to appreciate the construction of a perspective view.
*Mostly it is projecting down from the plan and across from the elevation. If the plan and elevation are 'measured' drawings, I suppose you could consider the resultant perspective a 'measured' drawing, but you aren't doing any actual measuring of the perspective drawing, and you wouldn't be able to pull an accurate measurement from the perspective for anything (except for vertical lines of the drawn object where they intersect the picture plane).
Thanks, EI. Good to know. I guess. I like the eyeball method. I guess I've never just drafted a perspective, but have always used it to visualize and figure stuff out, where using ratios... making things "smaller", "bigger", etc works.
You still need to decide where you place the paperclip exactly to get an accurate spatial representation, so a basic understanding of drawing and perspective is already needed I suppose to understand how to use this trick...
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