L.S. Lowry Street Scenes

Though not actually Victorian, Lowry's street scenes seemed to fit in perfectly with the theme, and the factory chimneys and crowds of 'matchstick men' definitely caught the children's imagination.

This lesson was also intended as an introduction to one-point perspective. We started with images to prompt discussion about perspective in general before looking at this specific technique. Using a Lowry image on the Smartboard, we could work out where his vanishing point had been and draw on the lines he must have used.

Everybody started off with two rectangles and lines leading towards the vanishing point to create the street scene. Despite having the same starting point, the drawings all came out very differently. The most confident were able to add lots of details, side streets etc.

The biggest challenges were remembering to use the vanishing point for all the details and recognising whether the vertical lines were parallel (there were a lot of leaning doors and windows). Some children who were confident drawing 3D objects using oblique projection and parallel lines, also made more mistakes as they were tempted to draw parallel lines rather when they should have gone from the vanishing point. 

In any case, the results are now all looking fantastic on our Victorian wall display!