Children's Use of Converging Obliques in their Perspective Drawings

Abstract

This paper investigates children's use of converging obliques in their drawings of objects. Adults and adolescents, as well as 7‐year‐old children, were not very successful in using converging obliques in their drawings of small‐scale objects; they tended to use parallel edges. When confronted with the apparent convergence of a real road receding into the distance adults and adolescents switched to using converging obliques; 7‐year‐olds still drew parallel roadsides. Children were induced to use converging obliques, however, when asked to copy from a line drawing of a road or from a photograph, particularly when the convergence of the road in the photograph was more dramatic.