Willy Pogány - Drawing Lessons

A dot is the simplest thing to draw so let us begin with the dot.

Take a small writing pad.

Tear out a couple of pages.

Draw a dot anywhere on one of these blank pages.

LIKE THIS

BLANK PAGE

Now try to draw a dot on the other blank page in exactly the same position.

Do not trace. Do not measure except with your eye.

You can see how wrong it would be to place the dot in any one of these positions.

BUT

If you judge with your eye the right distance from the edge of the paper, your dot will be in the right spot.

Next make several dots at random on a clean page something like this

Then copy all of them on a clean sheet.

Do not measure or trace just try to judge the correct distances.

To check the accuracy of your copy place it over the original dots and hold both up towards the light. Note your mistakes.

Practice this simple exercise until you come close to perfection. This practice will aid greatly in developing your judgment of Distance, Direction and Proportion.

PERSPECTIVE

We know that a cube has six sides.

We know also that each side is a perfect square, but if we draw a cube as we know it to be, it does not look like a cube.

For example, here are six perfect squares but this drawing does not look like a cube.

We know that a man has a front and a back, but we have never seen both front and back at the same time.

We know that a tin can has a circular top and a circular bottom of equal size, but we must admit that we never have seen a tin can like this.

We know that the house in the distance is considerably larger than the man in the foreground.

We know also that the mountain in the far distance is much larger than the house, but we see the man larger than the house and we see the house larger than the mountain.