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The Right Perspective Is A Game Changer

I’m learning how to create the right perspective in a drawing. It’s all about how your eyes see things in the distance. 

the right perspective is a game changer

This past spring I got a new iPad and along with it I got an Apple Pencil. I didn’t know exactly what I would use it for, but I really liked how well it worked and how responsive it was. 

So in the summer, on vacation, I started to fool around with using the pencil to draw things.

It had been years since I had done any drawing whatsoever … unless you count doodling on scrap paper while I’m talking on the phone. I do remember way back when I was in high school that I used to draw the album covers from some of my favourite artists.

I have absolutely no training. I don’t know anything about lines, shading or anything, including perspective. Some of my drawings I liked; others were pretty bad – certainly not good enough to show anyone, although I did keep them. 

When Lily and I had our kids, going out and getting a babysitter was kind of expensive for us. So we tried some creative dating at home. 

Once I came home with a couple of pads of drawing paper and some pencils. Lil, who is talented in drawing and painting, drew something that looked good. What I drew, well, I can’t remember, but it was not so hot. 

Fast forward to this year. In the summer, a couple of drawings I did needed some perspective and I found that really hard to draw. So I asked Lily and she gave me some tips and showed me what I needed to be doing. 

Still it was tough to get the right perspective. 

You have to be able to locate the vanishing point and make the drawing get smaller towards that point. Then everything looks right in the picture. 

Perspective is not just important for drawing pictures, but also for other things. 

Last night I was at a hockey game and had a person sitting right beside me. 

When the arena was designed, it was done with great care to make sure there were good sight lines all over the rink. Our seats are near center ice and we can see both ends … that is if people sit properly. 

The person sitting next to me decided to sit a little forward in her seat. In other words, she didn’t have her back against the back of her seat. 

Well, that wrecked my perspective. The arena’s design works and everyone can see only if everyone has their back against the back of their seat. If someone sits forward they take the sight lines away and you can’t see what is happening in the corners. 

She understood what she was doing to my sight lines when I mentioned it. But it wasn’t long before she was sitting forward again and taking away my perspective.

… I would have sketched her but I couldn’t get the right perspective. 

Here’s the thing: Things get blocked or they just don’t look right when you don’t have the right perspective. It’s also true with God. Without the right perspective, we don’t see Him correctly or He may be blocked from our view. Get the right perspective by reading God’s word, the Bible. It gives us a very clear picture of Him. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need proper perspective on right now? Leave your comments and questions below. 

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You Can Do More Than You Think You Can

You don’t know what you can do until you try. 

you can do more than you think you can

We often assume or think we can’t do something we have not tried. It’s sort of our go-to determination. 

We might see someone riding a skateboard and our immediate thought is, “I can’t do that”.

I remember when I was a teen talking to my grandmother about skateboards. Back then they were a very crude iteration of what they are now. 

She had been watching us from the living room window when I said, “Gram, you could try out my skateboard.” 

Her response was quick and decisive: “Oh, I’d land on my head.”

… Granted she was in her late 80’s at the time and probably would have if she had tried. But there was no consideration on her part. It was simply an automatic response that she could not do that. 

There are many things we see each day and make that same kind of instant determination that we could not possibly do that. 

Maybe it’s making something with our hands, or working some kind of machine. It could be coordinating colours in a room, or designing a landscape in a back yard. 

We just don’t think we can do it. 

But how do you know you can’t do something if you have never tried? 

Sometimes we base our judgement on our results of doing something similar. We may have tried something years ago with poor results so we think we can’t do anything similar now. 

Drawing is one of those things. It takes some talent to draw and most people don’t think they can draw very well, so they only draw stick figures.

I’m not even talking about drawing a picture that you would consider showing to others. I’m just talking about drawing something that looks like what you were trying to draw. 

When I was in high school, I listened to music a lot. Sometimes I would look at the cover of an album and get inspired. I started to draw the faces of some of my favourite music artists. 

I’ve never taken art classes, so I don’t know how to properly shade something. When it comes to pen or pencil strokes, I know nothing. I just tried to draw what I saw. 

I never showed anyone what I drew, but you could see the resemblance from the pictures. 

Well, recently I got a new iPad along with the Apple Pencil. I decided I would try to draw something with it … after all, it’s only been 45- 50 years since I did it last. 

So I took a few photographs and tried my hand at drawing parts of them. 

When I showed my daughter, her response was, “Hey, Mom is artistic and can draw. Dad, you can draw. What happened to me? I’ve got no talent to do any of that.”

My only thought was, “Give it a try. Maybe you can, and you just think you can’t.”

Here’s the thing: We often make quick determinations when it comes to God. We think, “He won’t do this” or “He will say no to that”. Before we even ask God, we’ve written Him out of the picture. Maybe if you weren’t so quick to count God out, He might respond to your request. But you will never know unless you get past that automatic response.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you believed God would not do so you’ve never asked? Leave your comments and questions below.

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