The basic lessons you will learn through this exercise are that the position of the horizon in your view is always dictated by your eye-level and on a straight, flat road, the sides of the road will always appear to converge at your eye level.
Start to plan your expedition.
Firstly, you need to find the right location -- a long straight road without any cars on it.
You will need to take a pencil with you -- all will become clear as you work through the exercises.
Working though these steps will encourage you to really get to grips with what you are looking at.
Step 1: stand in the middle of the road, with your eyes and feet pointing straight ahead of you.
Don't stand with your feet showing ten to two on the clock because it ruins the experiment! Keep your eyes level: in other words, don't look up or down.
Think hard about what you can see in front of you.
The spot on the rod where you are standing is called the viewpoint.
You will notice that the sides of the road appear to converge in the distance, which is odd, because they are clearly parallel to each other.
You have just discovered perspective for yourself! Step 2: Still standing in the middle of the long straight road, hold your arm in front of you and extend your thumb out from your closed fist as if you were doing a 'thumbs up' sign.
Instead of the thumb pointing upwards, turn it sideways so that it forms a relatively straight line horizontally in front of your eyes and at your eye-level.
Holding a pencil at this angle makes a slightly longer and straighter horizontal line.
If you are not an artist, you many have wondered what artists were doing with pencils stuck out at arm's length -- now you know.
Step 3: Your thumb/pencil should be level with your eyes, which in a flat landscape will be level with the horizon.
However, if you have any distant hills, tall trees or buildings in your view, these may rise above your thumb/pencil - in other words, above your eye level.
Now look past your private horizontal line to the point where the sides of the road appear to converge.
In a flat landscape, you will see that the sides of the road appear to converge at your eye level, which for an average height adult is about 1.
5m (5ft) when measure from the ground to the eyes.
This is an invaluable revelation! For future reference try to remember that your feet are also parallel to your direction of view provided that you are not standing like a ballerina/Charlie Chaplin/ a penguin.
Step 4: If you had brought a small step ladder with you, you could climb up it so you are standing in a much higher position on the road than before.
You would see that the horizon has followed your example and has risen with you.
It would still appear to be at your eye level but the angle at which the sides of the road appear to converge has changed.
Step 5: By now you may have had enough of all this thinking, but if you can face one more part of the experiment, sit down.
You should still be in the middle of the road and have your arm outstretched, with your private horizontal line in front of your eyes.
Magically, you will see that the dies of the road sill appear to converge at your eye-level - even thought the horizon seems to have gone down with you -- but that the dies of the road converge at a more dramatic angle than before.
Start to plan your expedition.
Firstly, you need to find the right location -- a long straight road without any cars on it.
You will need to take a pencil with you -- all will become clear as you work through the exercises.
Working though these steps will encourage you to really get to grips with what you are looking at.
Step 1: stand in the middle of the road, with your eyes and feet pointing straight ahead of you.
Don't stand with your feet showing ten to two on the clock because it ruins the experiment! Keep your eyes level: in other words, don't look up or down.
Think hard about what you can see in front of you.
The spot on the rod where you are standing is called the viewpoint.
You will notice that the sides of the road appear to converge in the distance, which is odd, because they are clearly parallel to each other.
You have just discovered perspective for yourself! Step 2: Still standing in the middle of the long straight road, hold your arm in front of you and extend your thumb out from your closed fist as if you were doing a 'thumbs up' sign.
Instead of the thumb pointing upwards, turn it sideways so that it forms a relatively straight line horizontally in front of your eyes and at your eye-level.
Holding a pencil at this angle makes a slightly longer and straighter horizontal line.
If you are not an artist, you many have wondered what artists were doing with pencils stuck out at arm's length -- now you know.
Step 3: Your thumb/pencil should be level with your eyes, which in a flat landscape will be level with the horizon.
However, if you have any distant hills, tall trees or buildings in your view, these may rise above your thumb/pencil - in other words, above your eye level.
Now look past your private horizontal line to the point where the sides of the road appear to converge.
In a flat landscape, you will see that the sides of the road appear to converge at your eye level, which for an average height adult is about 1.
5m (5ft) when measure from the ground to the eyes.
This is an invaluable revelation! For future reference try to remember that your feet are also parallel to your direction of view provided that you are not standing like a ballerina/Charlie Chaplin/ a penguin.
Step 4: If you had brought a small step ladder with you, you could climb up it so you are standing in a much higher position on the road than before.
You would see that the horizon has followed your example and has risen with you.
It would still appear to be at your eye level but the angle at which the sides of the road appear to converge has changed.
Step 5: By now you may have had enough of all this thinking, but if you can face one more part of the experiment, sit down.
You should still be in the middle of the road and have your arm outstretched, with your private horizontal line in front of your eyes.
Magically, you will see that the dies of the road sill appear to converge at your eye-level - even thought the horizon seems to have gone down with you -- but that the dies of the road converge at a more dramatic angle than before.
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