Drskmishra

[D Akey]

You picked a very complex mechanical image again, so all elements have to relate to each other for scale. Sadly they do not.

One of the things one needs to consider as a check is that it ALL must look right to your eye, rather than just relying on following some mechanical formula (computers do that admirably). Because if you get your calculations wrong in a meaningless formula, it will be wrong.

So walk through this picture and look at the relative scale and angles of the objects and people. Does it look right to your eye, or is it because you are trying to follow a formula, it got away from you. It looks to me like you followed a formula and set the perspective one way, and then you saw a scale problem and inserted the closest car on the left to try to make it work with the people on the sidewalk. But the people, if they crossed the street would dominate the sport of basketball because they're so tall.

My suggestion is to simplify your image as you learn perspective like this. Do a drawing before you paint, even if it's rough, and look at the scale of every object. Or, on the other hand, you might want to get somebody else's painting or photo that is successful in your eyes and use it as a tracing image and plot out the lines and get yourself into the way it works and note all the perspective lines and points of contact for the objects and figures. Or, if you have the patience, get a simple book that teaches perspective at a beginner's level.

Or you can just paint and ignore the perspective formulas and try to get it right to your eye. But you need to be looking closer.

Anyway, this painting is useful for you to see what the problem is. It's not unlike diagnosing the source of a hidden malady that's showing up from a nasty symptom -- where you have to force it to get worse to spot what it is. I think you did just that. Well diagnosed. You identified the problem in your comment.

If you're painting for relaxation and pleasure, there's nobody saying you need to do mentally critical stuff like this to prove you're getting good at painting. Enjoy the process, whichever way you go with it. And if you want the challenge, then go for it! My hat's off to you.

Oh, one other thing to try -- there are mechanical pages called 'Perspective Grids' that you can lay it under your paint levels and you have all the perspective worked out for you more or less. Architects and mechanical designers use them (or used to) before there were programs that did that stuff for you. But if you can download a suitable grid from the internet and get handy with it, you would solve a lot of problems immediately.