Julian beaver chalk paintings foreshortening tutorial

How many times have we stared in amazement at the street art chalk drawings of Julian Beever or the 3D pencil drawings of artist Nagai Hideyuki and thought, “How did they do that?” Their art appears to pop off the very pavement or paper that it was created on.

We know it’s an illusion. We know it’s anamorphosis.

Julian beaver chalk paintings foreshortening tutorial

What we aren’t quite sure of is how it’s done. Today I’d like to let you in on the secret with a project that merges technology with traditional drawing and the concept of perspective into one fun, effective lesson.
 

You will learn how to manipulate photos of common everyday objects so they can be used as references for 3D anamorphosis drawings.

Let’s get started!

Manipulating Your Reference

The first step is to manipulate the reference that will be used for the drawing. The student will need an image to import into Photoshop or other digital p