Review: Essential Linear Perspective Techniques by Patrick Connors (Craftsy course)

Patrick Connors is a Philadelphia easel painter who also teaches perspective at various art schools. He's one of the instructors on the Craftsy video tutorial platform and has recently invited me to review his course Essential Linear Perspective Techniques.

His is a 142-minute course that's split into seven lessons, namely:

• Introduction to Pictorial Structures - 14 min
• Picture Plane Drawing - 16 min
• Eye Level Line & Perspective - 13 min
• Projecting the Plane in Perspective - 20 min
• Vanishing and Measure Points - 23 min
• Points of Perspective - 30 min
• Circles in Perspective - 26 min

The learning points are to understand the concept of perspective and to use perspective in your drawings to place objects in space.

Connors talks and demonstrates different concepts used in perspective, such as the using it to depict spatial depth of objects, finding and using the eye level line, vanishing points and picture plane.

It's actually quite a similar to another perspective course that I've featured called The Art & Science of Perspective by Jeff DiCicco. That course is more advanced and goes into drawing buildings immediately after some explanation on perspective.

Connors' course on perspective is more focused on the fundamentals. It even talks the picture plane, something that's used by artists from the past and are seldom mentioned today except maybe in old textbooks. The picture plane is a useful concept to help you understand how you can translate something you see to fit onto a piece of paper.

What you'll learn is basically how to draw a cube in one and two point perspective, a house with a tilted roof, and circles in perspective. The concepts can be applied to other subjects.

The video tutorials are hands-on demonstrations that you can easily follow along, and there are also suggested exercise at the end of each lesson for you to try.

The downside is if you want to follow exactly, then you might need to the tools that he used during the demonstrations. That would be things like a piece of glass for use as a picture plane. But the concept should be very easy to grasp just by watching, or you can use your window pane.

Overall, this is a simple introduction course to perspective that will help you understand the basics and draw simple forms using the concepts learned.

You can check out more reviews on the course page below.

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