A Short Lesson on Horizon Lines
Mitch Baird has been working on some complex architectural scenes from Italy and wanted to share tips on horizon lines with his mentoring course students. He is showing how the horizon lines do not change for the elements that are level - though the vertical plane may change (this is marked in red below). With uphill paths, the slanted ground planes vanish to higher horizons ( purple and green) and nothing but the slanted planes vanish up there. Mitch had to get the groundwork sketched in, then paint over it so it is unseen. He kept the vertical planes visible with a dot to refer to throughout the painting process. This proves perspective cannot be faked.
How does Mitch know that there are 3 horizon lines?
The path/ground planes are sloping uphill before and after the step and vanish to a higher level, but the steps into the doors, windows, etc., that are flat/level, will vanish to the main horizon line of our eyes.
These tips came directly from Mitch’s private Facebook group from his mentoring course “Painting with Perception”
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