So I had a go at doing a cityscape with perspective. Two-point perspective, to be precise. This required a crash course on 1, 2 and 3 point perspective, a quick practice using pencil, paper and an eraser (mostly the latter), then firing up Adobe Illustrator and wrangling with the perspective grid, which, once you figure out how it works, makes things fairly quick and easy – until that point, you are better of with pencil and paper. Anyway, technically I am happy as the perspective is spot on. I even added windows, each of which has to be drawn separately, to get the correct perspective.
However, I made a number of design mistakes. There isn’t enough contrast in the fabrics so the two buildings on the lower left merge into each other, and the windows on the big building on the left are barely visible. I should have carried the buildings right to the edge of the picture frame, as now it looks like a small island floating in a green sea (which is NOT what I intended). I also need to include more buildings, particularly in the background, to make it look more high density. I also want to play around with the horizon line – I want to drop it much lower to get the feel of looking up at the buildings more. Anyway, lots to be going on with.
The centre panel is 8 x 8 inches and I added border with a view to making a little 12 x 12 quilt, but as I don’t really like it I won’t bother finishing it off. It has served its purpose as a valuable learning exercise.
Hilary Metcalf Textile Art 