| Well, Tazy, you almost got it. I am still trying to point out that the plateau angle is reversible, and it's enabled that way because of the lack of appropriate shadows or shading. There are a lot of problems going on that enable it, but that's the most obvious one. Here's another observation: the line at the top of the plateau's edge is darker than the line that should be in shadow, where it meets the sand. The line in shadow should be darker than the higher line, if it changes tone; that is another way to indicate depth.
Another thing I find bizarre about the image is how the lines at the base of the plateaus have this waving pattern that is totally out of sync with the lines at the top of the plateaus - they very with much greater depth than the lines at the "top." It's not totally unexplainable, but it appears as though the lower cliff face is not supporting the higher cliff face. In fact, the way that the lower line varies with such greater depth is in reverse of what an artist should observe; it is drawn in such a way that the lower line more closely resembles what should be the edge of a cliff than the higher line.
So, when I'm looking at the image, the broken plateau shadow is merely edging around the top plateau, and the top line is supporting the bottom line. The more you know about how the image should be composed to indicate space, it looks like an impossible abstraction. |