The Art of Perspective: The Ultimate Guide for Artists in Every Medium

I have "Perspective Without Pain" by the same author. The "Art of Perspective" is basically the same book, but he has expanded it with full color illustrations and some new material. The book has helped me understand and create depth in my artwork, and the exercises are fun to do. If trying to choose between the two books, the "Art of Perspective" is the best choice.

The "Art of Perspective" is an impressive and very useful guide to achieve a convincing illusion of depth in drawings or paintings. PHIL METZGER shows outstanding talent presenting his techniques with simple and easy-to-follow explanations. With his guidance we succeed putting perspective into the picture- no matter how special our eye-position or view-point may be. And he does not leave out any complementary subject, like atmospheric perspective, light and shadow or reflected light as well as many other effects that contribute to the illusion of depth. Moreover his fine watercolor paintings stimulate us to contemplate, having adopted now the ability of showing what we see in a very convincing way.

I am an art teacher who has spent years teaching perspective, linear and atmospheric...and I have never found a very good book until this one!!!! The Art of Perspective: The Ultimate Guide for Artists in Every Medium

Illustrates and explains the right way to draw roof angles, shadows and reflections, as well as stairs, tile floors, wheels, etc. Uses many diagrams, photographs, painting examples (watercolor & some oil), and written suggestions for different methods to try in figuring out how to draw something correctly. Briefly touches on focus, reflected light, scale, etc; some step-by-step demonstrations on drawing houses. Some prior perspective knowledge might fill in some small gaps in information (struggled through Rex Vicat Cole's Perspective for Artists, a helpful 1920s textbook-like reprint) but this book goes to great lengths to illustrate perspective in a way I can understand.

This book is incredible. I highly recommend it. The writing is detailed, clear and simple. The accompanying photographs, line drawings, sketches and paintings are numerous and clearly show what is being discussed. The discussion is comprehensive but written in a way to make the subject clear without unnecessary clutter. The author starts with "Natural Perspective" including the elements of size, spacing, tone, value, color, overlapping, placement, etc., then moves on to the rules of Linear Perspective. I have a burgeoning collection of art, drawing, sketching and painting books and this ranks at the very top. The discussion of Natural Perpective in the first several chapters is - by itself - worth the cost of the book. I can't recommend this highly enough !!!!! So many books fall far short of their promises. This one delivers.