Articles & Texticles

(Click to enlarge)

Of course the more perspicacious among you readers of Articles and Texticles will have immediately spotted what the artist is doing wrong in this picture.
That’s right, he’s wearing completely the wrong footwear for the job. He should be wearing very heavy boots so that he can keep his knees down, and support his drawing pad properly. Rest assured however, that he is at least using a lead pencil that won’t float away easily.

The next picture offers an explanation of what might have led to this soggy situation…
(Click it to make it bigger, please)

It’s quite obvious that someone has seen the eye level marked on the wall, and confused it with a swimming pool that needed filling. It could easily happen to any of us.

The genius at work behind these wonderful illustrations is, or was, Ernest Norling (1892 – 1974), who brought a splendidly irreverent approach to the slightly plodding subject of perspective in the Walter Foster book, Perspective Drawing. (Cover below)

Look through this search of Alibris listings to find a copy of the original edition, which was probably around 1960, maybe a year or two earlier. Walter Foster still sell the title, but I can’t glean from their site whether the illustrations are the originals or a later edition. Maybe you will get lucky on eBay, if you really like this wacko style.

I found these images on Chris Mullen’s wonderful site, fulltable.com (Link to article) – I’ve cleaned them up a bit to eliminate the scanner strikethrough that happens with flimsy paper.

Chris Mullen’s notes read:

Ernest Norling (1892 -1974) was a stalwart of the New Deal Mural Projects whose two publications on Perspective are models of the way training manuals should be for artists. The illustrations and examples are innovative in that they stress modern objects and scenes. From his cover to the Foster publication, Perspective Drawing, it is sure he has a keen sense of the absurd, and few artists after Hogarth find Perpsective and its aberrations funny.

Have a look at a different approach to the business of explaining perspective drawing, this time from a whimsical British 1950’s angle -

Gwen White, A Book of Pictorial Perspective, 1954

Gwen White, A Book of Pictorial Perspective, 1954

You will love Chris Mullen’s website, but a little word of caution: save your visit for a quiet day. There is so much to see and discover, but it is not laid out in a way that is completely predictable, which in my view constitutes a large part of its charm.