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A brief history of 3D Street Art:

During the sixteenth century, Italian artists known as “Madonnari” created drawings of Madonna simply using chalks. Chalk paintings became popular thereafter. During mid- 1900s, the street painting tradition started to decline. To sustain this art form, a festival was launched in 1972 in an Italian town called Grazie di Curtatone. Since then, it is held every year in the month of August. Chalk artists are given twenty four hours to create a finished work of pavement art based on religious or Renaissance themes. This starts in the evening and work whole night. Since its inception not only the 3D drawings got more popular, but also, over the years, we got some stunning drawings. Needless to say, today, it went far beyond chalk as a medium and artists started using various conventional and unconventional mediums for 3D drawings. Interestingly, it was estimated that during 1980 there were more than five hundred artists who were making a full-time living from street art in London alone. “Screever” is the formal British term for street artists.

It is interesting to know what it takes to produce such stunning effects through some simple drawings! Here are some of the factors which are to be considered before planning such drawings:

Lighting and placement of light source

It’s a basic concept of drawing that the shape of 3D object can be depicted by the variation of light or shading. A sphere can be defined by shading in the area furthest from the light source. The area on which light falls directly should be shaded with the lighter colors. The object should get progressively darker as you go further from the light source. That is why, while planning a 3D Street Art we need to define the placement of the light source and how the textures of associated objects like stone, brick, leaves, etc. changes to the placement of light.

Perspective

Perspective is a difficult concept based on a simple rule. Object closer to you appears bigger and objects away from you appear smaller. Also, there is a concept of optical illusion. In the total backdrop, you need to place the object in the right position or perspective. Path/ road appears to get narrower as you look further. That defines where you are putting an object. Also, where the object will face or look at? The object geometry changes according to the viewing angles. That is why, the whole drawing has to be planned from viewer’s perspective.