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I can’t draw a straight line!  Buildings challenge me because whenever I draw a vertical line it will pull to the right towards the bottom.  This is especially prevalent when I am painting plein air or doing a demo.  I am so focused on getting the large value shapes and sense of light correct that I don’t notice the wonky lines until I get back to the studio. It may be a lovely picture with interesting shapes and great sparkle of color, but all I can see is that my perspective is off.

Perspective is only important when it is wrong.

I have come up with a couple of tools that help remedy this problem.  They are inexpensive and fit neatly into a small pocket of my plein air bag

The first tool is a plumb line.  I made mine from dental floss and a washer.  The washer provides weight, and dental floss is the ideal line because it is unlikely to become a tangled mess while sitting unused.  I hold this simple device up in front of the vertical lines on my painting to see how they compare to the vertical lines of the subject. Gravity does the work and the plumb line always gives me a true vertical.   If there is a difference I make a light mark where the plum line is and adjust my painting accordingly.

The second tool is a mini level.  If my canvas or paper is not level all my marks will be off including the horizon line.  By placing a mini level on the panel holder of my easel I can adjust for uneven surfaces and know that the plumb line and bottom of the panel are perpendicular to each other.

These tools won’t stop me from making lines that pull to the right, but with my snazzy new devices I can compensate for this tendency and overcome the problem.