I very much enjoyed my Perspective Drawing class at the Toronto School of Art by our teacher Lindsey Rosenow. A few things stood out to me as interesting takeaways:

1. Use large drawing paper (18×24 in) and make the drawing on a small section of the page within a frame.

This was critical so I could practice two point perspective on one page with relative ease.

2. Erase. A lot.

Get a soft eraser that crumbles easily. This means you won’t tear any newsprint paper. Drawing and erasing the guidelines helps make sure that it’s accurate and makes you less likely to get stuck on how you originally thought it might look like.

3. Gesture out the general layout before fixing in the drawing lines.

This means drawing loosely freehand where you expect shapes to go to block it all in and get the right composition. Perspective drawing has a lot of rules to make it all work together. It all has to be consistent to go to the perspective points.

4. Using a ruler doesn’t mean you’re bad at drawing.

I resisted originally using the ruler. This was because I thought I was good at drawing and did not need a ruler. Eventually, I realized my boxes and lines weren’t working right without the ruler. By necessity I used it. As I got used to using the ruler, I realized it made my drawing better since the lines weren’t as wiggly and wouldn’t have to erase as often because my lines were completely off.

5. References don’t need to be adhered to precisely. Use them as inspiration.

There were some drawings where I didn’t like how my drawing didn’t match the actual reference photo. But I realized, my goal isn’t necessarily to recreate the photo itself. There was value in my drawing leaving out parts, moving things around and what not else.

6. Tell a story with your drawing.

Our teacher Lindsey Rosenow was great at pointing out that small details can convey a lot. For instance, a sock hanging out of an open drawer, how people stack things on top of fridges and shelves, and how fences might have posts that fell apart. This allowed me to put personality into my drawings and add my own touch.

7. Trust the perspective rules.

At the early stages, drawing from an unusual vantage point meant that there were some odd lines that would need to connect to a vanishing point. As I tend to follow rules, I just continued despite my hesitation. Trusting the process allowed me to get to a point where the object “appeared”, almost magically.

8. It takes time and work.

There is no real shortcut in drawing and it takes a lot of practice. The best drawings were ones where I did not get lazy and kept at it. The more work I put into it, I really do see the payoff in the end.

9. Don’t forget to have fun!

Half way through the course, I started wanting to make drawings that would delight my classmates when we shared them. We would take the practice instructions and run with them. I threw in a stuffed animal here, a mouse there, a character stuck in the train tracks we made. Seeing the reaction of my peers and teacher was very motivating. Likewise, I was inspired when my classmates made houses with bird legs, the living room set of Fraser, or a T-Rex dinosaur.

10. Do the simple stuff to get to the hard stuff.

I was a bit skeptical originally when I started the class because I was worried that it was going to be too basic and I wouldn’t learn anything. The difficulty level quickly ramped up though, and immediately when we were tasked with carving shapes out of those boxes, I realized I had a lot to learn. Once I figured out how to do this, I learned the value of the fundamentals so it would be second nature to draw in an accurate way. This is probably true in many professions and outside of art making.

I’m not sure what’s next on my art learning journey. I toggled between drawing and painting classes but there are few watercolour courses. Foundational to all paintings is drawing and I could take more drawing classes. I might consider facial features since I have only learned them in books. But my marathon of classes for the past 6 months has been time consuming and it would be nice to do something else or focus on my next art show. I will keep thinking on.