Review: The Art & Science of Perspective by Jeff DiCicco (Craftsy course)

The Art & Science of Perspective is a hands-on technical course on perspective drawing conducted by artist and architectural illustrator Jeff DiCicco.

The whole video course on Craftsy runs for 164 minutes and it's suitable for beginners to intermediate artists.

The learning points would be one and two point perspective, how to construct buildings based on a floor plan, or place buildings on the perspective grid, place different elements on structures (e.g. windows, doors, steps) and other miscellaneous rendering details. The course covers both interior and exterior use of perspective.

The screenshots above show how you can use a floor plan to create a perspective drawing. Basically, once you establish a viewing point, you'll go on to learn how to use perspective rules to draw in all the walls, ceilings, windows and doors. A protractor is required to measure angles. Note that the instructor uses a large 24-inch wide sheet of paper. The lessons are certainly easier to follow when you're drawing on a larger sheet of paper and you will need a long ruler. That's because some details can be quite close together and on a bigger piece of paper you get to space them out which will make it easier to draw.

Every lesson starts with an introduction to the fundamentals. In this case, it's the creation of the perspective grid. Then it moves on to how you can apply that knowledge.

There are examples of how you can create a perspective drawing based off a photo by observational skills. This particular lesson is really good at reinforcing the importance of proportion drawing.

Overall, the instructions are very detailed and simple to follow. There are step-by-step with explanation throughout.

The only downside to me is they left out the three-point perspective which I thought should be included to make the course more comprehensive. And there's nothing on how to place human figures on the perspective grid, or into the environments.

Ultimately, this is a technical course taught in an accessible manner. The techniques are useful and should stay with you forever.

Enoll in The Art & Science of Perspective on the Craftsy platform.

Disclosure: This course was provided to me by Craftsy for review purposes. You can support Parka Blogs by using the affiliate links as I get a little commission from each sale. :-)