Space… the final frontier

Starship date 28874.391 Captain’s log: “We are in orbit around the third planet from a small star.”

“Probes report it is a terra planet with carbon life-forms.” “Oddly it exists only in three dimensions.” “Must understand.” “Must gain perspective.”

“Must intercept carbon-life forms.” “Commence landing procedures.”

“Central location selected.” “Multitude of carbon-based life-forms detected.”

“Proceed with caution” “Continue landing procedures.”

“Finding third-dimensional world difficult to understand…must seek help…”

Meanwhile, on Earth, crowds watch as an alien ship descends toward the campus of Colorado State University…

Exclamations of awe and surprise are heard far and wide…

The ship has landed! The portal opens! And from inside…

…the story unfolds

As we return from our adventure we realize the aliens sought to understand our world from our perspective… From the three-dimensions in which we exist. We must use our perspective to tell of our adventure.

And so, to tell this story we’ll focus on using linear perspective in our picture. But what? What are those rumblings I hear? You aren’t sure you understand what linear perspective is? Why – what kind of art educators are you! Okay, let’s review…

The three photos below demonstrate the difference between one-point, two-point, and multiple point perspective.

This means that all the buildings in Fig This means that all the buildings in Fig. 1 converge on one vanishing point, the buildings in Fig. 2 converge on two vanishing points, and the buildings in Fig. 3 converge in multiples places.

Remember, the vanishing point is the place on the horizon where parallel lines appear to converge.

So, your mission today is to tell the story of your adventure this morning, but you need to use linear perspective in your picture. You may select one-, two- or multiple-point perspective. But don’t forget that the subject of your story is our adventure… Hmmm, this sounds suspiciously like you’ll be creating a visual narrative!