The sun is shining and the breeze is calm as New Buffalo‘s Drawing and Painting class walks the perimeter of their high school while training their eyes to really look at the building as a work of art.
Perspective is a necessary skill for high school students to draw realistic depth perception. Historically, artworks were often created very flat until the development of perspective portraying three-dimensional space on paper in the Renaissance period.
While my students could demonstrate one and two point perspective during in-class exercises, this project raised the bar by challenging them to apply their knowledge of perspective while drawing architecture in-person instead of from a photo reference on a screen.
Prior to instruction, I had the class take a pre-test by drawing a building location on campus that demonstrated perspective so I could see their skill level going into this unit.
Representational drawing from life can be difficult to achieve but does improve with practice. Looking at their first sketches, I knew that these were solid attempts but that my students had room to grow and lot of potential.
By learning to closely observe the high school building by sighting and using the rules of perspective as a guide for depth perception, their artwork became more accurate to life.
Over the course of the unit, my students became more comfortable with sighting the angles and lines that make up their high school building. With close observation and applying the rules of perspective as guidelines, their artwork continued to develop.
I referenced several artists who specialize in urban sketching by drawing buildings and city scenes in pen and watercolor wash.
I also reviewed watercolor techniques and color mixing taught in Art I to create different hues for the color of brick with gradual values in the final stages of their work.
This is when all of those light pencil lines of perspective came alive to become mixed media paintings!
Drawing takes practice like any other technical skill and the students stuck with it from beginning to end. I emphasized that if they could improve perspective with observational drawing, that they could draw anything they want to. Over time, drawing with perspective will come second nature as visual perception is fine-tuned just as hand-eye ball coordination improves with practice in sports. While drawing architecture from observation might seem like an impossible task, with a little patience and practice, I know my students can achieve anything they put their minds to. You've just got to keep it all in perspective!
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