Foreshortening and Circles in Perspective

Point your arm straight at a camera and take a photo: your hand looks huge, your arm almost disappears. That's foreshortening, the visual compression of a form that points toward (or away from) the viewer. It's perspective applied to any object, and it's what makes drawings feel dynamic and three-dimensional.

What happens when a form points at you

As an object rotates toward you:

• Its length looks shorter, sometimes almost zero.
• Its ellipses get rounder (higher degree).
• The near end looks bigger than the far end.
• Overlaps increase: near parts cover far parts.

Circles in perspective

Every circle in a perspective drawing sits inside a square. To draw a circle on the ground or on the face of a box:

1. Draw the square in perspective.
2. Draw its diagonals and a cross through the center (the cross lines go to the VPs).
3. The circle touches the square at the four midpoints of its sides. Draw a smooth ellipse through these points.

The resulting ellipse is not centered in the square in perspective: its front half is slightly bigger than its back half. Its widest part is a little closer to you than the square's center.

Ellipses and eye level

Ellipses near your eye level are thin; ellipses far from it are open. This is why the top of a glass looks thinner than its base when you look at it from above.

Drawing foreshortened forms

• Use overlapping forms. Draw the near form first, complete; the farther forms tuck behind it.
• Use cross-contours (contour lesson). Ellipses wrapping a foreshortened limb tell the viewer which way it points.
• Exaggerate a little. Making the near end bigger than "correct" often reads better and adds energy. Comic artists do it all the time.
• Don't trust the outline. A foreshortened form's silhouette can be confusing. Its internal contours and overlaps carry the depth.