Frame Determines Linear Degree in Art
From “Previewing¨ in Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner
Whatever you draw that needs to look vertical or horizontal also needs to be parallel to the sides of your paper.
One can draw a straight line up and down on a piece of paper from one’s perspective, yet what direction the paper itself was rotated towards will affect–once the paper is under its conventional rotation–the perceived degree of the line. Perhaps more accurately, then, it can be said that it is the final framing of the art that determines the degree rotation of what appears in it. Thus, it is important to rotate the page to aid in the final product, or more generally to be guided by the sides of the page when intuiting the degrees of a given line (Garcia 2003, 38).
Linear degree and “straightness¨ of lines
The degrees of a line impacts the “straightness¨ of a line, regardless of direction, because any curve on a line means a change in degrees along the same line. This framing principle of linear degree can then be used to guide efforts at creating straight lines.
One thing that may make it difficult to make straight lines is one’s own lateral bias (Garcia 2003, 39):
From “Previewing¨ in Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner
Your line may lean right if you’re a “rightie,¨ left if a “leftie.¨ Anticipate this tendency and rein[sic] in from when you start to curve the line.
This lateral bias can even affect curved lines by exaggerating the curve towards the side of one’s body one is biased towards, in which case you will have to (Ibid):
From “Previewing¨ in Drawing for the Absolute Beginner
Rein in the upswing to correct that tendency.
Framing constrains imaginative kinesthesia
Since the frame of an image determines perceived rotational degree(s) of lines, the framing principle of linear degrees is important to imaginative kinesthesia.
axis enframing intuition straight_line straight_lines drawing sketching drawings sketches sketch art visual_art
bibliography
- Capp, Robbie, ed. “Previewing.” In Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner, 37. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 2003.