Time Out for Toilets

I've been a bit obsessed with Honey; it's time to take a break.

And take a look at toilets, an item I've tried to draw in perspective many times on the spot while my client watched and failed miserably. Note the toilet scribbled to the left of the shower in the picture above. Not cool drawing.

For starters, I drew my own. I noted that the toilet divided into three nearly equal sections from a frontal view.

But just drawing the frontal view wasn't enough, so I went on line to Kohler, and ran off a copy of the dimensions of one of their toilets that resembled mine and used those dimensions, to make a 45 degree perspective drawing,(which would have been the angle to use for a more respectable drawing than that scribble). To simplify the task, I eliminated the complicated side detailing of the plumbing fixture by adding a skirt. A toilet with a skirt is not only easier to draw in perspective, but easier to clean in the bathroom.

Studying the commode (my mother in-law's nice word for toilet) in perspective was an excellent exercise. It familiarized me with the actual construction, which makes drawing it on the spot a lot easier; it was a valuable lesson. This bath designer who has designed countless baths in twenty years in business really did have to get up close and personal with the place we all go first thing in the morning and last thing at night. (Did you notice that I just called the toilet a place ? Well I guess it is when you think about what people say when they've got to go. They say, "I'm going to the "men's room," or "the Ladies room," or "the john." never the toilet. Hmm.

An excellent book for teaching yourself perspective drawing is Perspective by Jay Doblin, Whitney Publishing. The author makes the processes extremely easy to understand. My book, the 1956 first edition, is no longer available, but there is a whole list of subsequent books by this author.