It’s pretty hard to get to grips with the scale of the solar system when Venus, the closest planet, feels really far already. But we’re practically squished together compared to Uranus and Neptune — they are a really, really, really long way away.

James O'Donoghue has made some brilliant videos about the solar system that explain this and more.

Solar system planets — distances to scale

Astronauts returning from space have repeatedly shared experiences like this:

“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty.”— Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut

“When we look down at the earth from space, we see this amazing, indescribably beautiful planet. It looks like a living, breathing organism. But it also, at the same time, looks extremely fragile … Anybody else who’s ever gone to space says the same thing because it really is striking and it’s really sobering to see this paper-thin layer and to realize that that little paper-thin layer is all that protects every living thing on Earth from death, basically. From the harshness of space.”— Shuttle/ISS astronaut Ron Garan

The overview effect, coined by Frank White, is kind of the mother of seeing the forest for the trees. It’s the realisation that we live on a fragile planet, we are all connected, and this is all we’ve got.

The sketch is based on the image of earth from the moon taken on the Apollo 11 mission.

The overview effect

A type of projection that looks distorted when viewed from a standard vantage point or means, but can reveal itself spectacularly from the right point or using the right tool.

This is the technique responsible for making 3D looking ads on rugby fields that players can run over as if they weren’t there; or how they create those amazing street art holes; or how S L O W painted on a road may look just right when driving towards it but weird and long when seen from the side; or how Hans Holbein the younger tucked a skull into his painting The Ambassadors in the National Gallery. But others may require viewing with a mirror or a circular viewer to reveal themselves as intended.

Anamorphic art is therefore referred to as an intimate art as, even in an art gallery, the true picture may only reveal themselves to one person viewing in just the right way.

Also see: one-point perspective, two-point perspective, 3-point perspective, draw what you see, not what you think, atmospheric perspective.

PS you’ll have to tilt your screen or move to quite an angle to see Tilt me look like normal letters in the sketch.

Anamorphosis

The name given to situations where people can give mutually contradictory versions of the same event. Named after the 1950’s Japanese film Rashomon which hinges on four conflicting descriptions of the same incident. Also commonly seen on the football field.

The Rashomon effect

The effect you may have noticed where things further in the distance lose their intensity and colour until they fade into the sky. Most often noticeable with hills or mountains, but also in a misty forest as mist, dust, fog or things like pollution increase the effect.

If it’s a blue sky day, the distance will take on a bluer tone like the colour of the sky.

This scene painted from our ascent of Mt Rainier in the Pacific Northwest. And here’s a sunset version.

Atmospheric perspective

A handy technique for communicating much of what you need about something.

Orthographic projection

It’s very easy to draw what we think something looks like, rather than what we’re actually seeing. One of the things art classes teach you is to measure what you’re seeing to not let your eyes be fooled by your common sense. An art teacher in a class at Berkeley once, memorably, sat on the classroom floor to illustrate foreshortening like I’ve shown here. It has stuck with me.

Draw what you see, not what you think

To experience, try standing at the corner of a tall building and looking up.

Also see One-point perspective and Two-point perspective.

Three-point perspective

Lines converge to two points on a horizon.

Two-point perspective

All lines converge to a central point. Turns out Kubrick is pretty handy at one-point perspective.

One-point perspective

Sometimes see the good in what you have come to resent.

Sketchplanations tagged with perspective