A Matter of Perspective

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about perspective. Back in the day when I taught college-level studio art classes, I would often tell my Drawing I students that learning to draw was also “learning to see”. What I really meant, though, is that learning to draw helps you “learn to see differently”. Learning to draw forces you to pay attention to what you see in new ways by looking at the negative space, the relationships of objects in space, light and shadow, etc. At some point in the semester, we would concentrate on perspective. Boxes and cylinders arranged at different angles and different height levels would be set up on a platform in the center of the room. I walked around the room from easel to easel as students held their pencils out to measure an angle and transpose it to their drawing. Students would draw from different positions in the room and also from different eye levels. Moving a few feet this way or that way or up or down changed the perspective and thus the drawing. To help them with their drawing, I would try to get into the exact space that they were in so that I could see what they were seeing. Often, a student’s drawing would have the perspective distorted or misrepresented because the mind has already seen this type of thing zillions of times and the beginning student needs to gain practice to overcome what they think they see. So, I guess drawing isn’t just “learning to see” or “learning to see differently” but also learning to see from different vantage points and just as importantly, learning to overcome what your mind thinks it sees. Yes, learning to draw is a metaphor for life. At least from my perspective it is.

Stay safe and healthy,

Tracy Jacobs