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How to Draw

Perspective Drawing

Introduction

Have you ever looked down railroad tracks and noticed that the far ends look much smaller than the ends nearer to you, and the gaps between the rails seem to narrow until the lines become one, just as they disappear over the horizon? This is because perspective helps you, the artist, to understand an object's location in relation to where you are and it helps you make your drawing of an object look more realistic. It is an important concept in industrial design and architecture.
perspective: the illusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface





Reflection

If you draw subjects that appear to get smaller the farther away they are, or you draw forms as they actually appear, you are drawing in perspective. Drawing in perspective is particularly useful to you, the artist, as it not only adds volume to your subject, but also makes your work look more realistic.

If you draw railroad tracks in perspective, what do you see? You see the following:
  • The parallel lines appear closer together as they go away from you.
  • The equal measures of the ties at different distances from you no longer look equal, but appear to get smaller as they disappear in the distance.
  • The railway ties of similar size appear to get smaller in size as they go away from you.
Perspective drawings provide the most realistic picture of objects. They are drawn to show objects as you would actually see them. In this activity, you will be introduced to one-point and two-point perspectives.
  • One- and two-point perspective drawings are popular drawings used by artists.
  • They show a three-dimensional form on a two-dimensional plane.
  • They are realistic views since they represent the reality of form in three dimensions, as you see it with your eyes.

In one-point perspective, there is one vanishing point on the horizon line. One-point perspective is the simplest way of showing perspective of an object that is square-on to you, the viewer. Learning to use one-point perspective will allow you to make more complex drawings.

The horizon line, which runs across the picture, is an important part of perspective. The horizon line is a line at your level on the horizon. It matches the height of the viewer's eyes and is sometimes called the eye level. (There does not have to be an actual line in the drawing.)
horizon line: the line at eye level on the horizon
 
The Two-Point Perspective

You've already learned the basic way of drawing a perspective. On a new sheet of paper, draw again your horizon line, but this time - add two vanishing points, each of which is opposite to one another ( imagine drawing a segmented line ). Now, draw the lines outward from these two vanishing points and add vertical lines to make your cube. You will notice that the vertical lines appear to be parallel. You will feel like you are looking up at the top half and bottom half of the cube.

Like in one point perspective, you can make the object appear to be on top by just drawing lines above the horizontal line. This comes handy when you are drawing any flying objects like jets.

If you want to draw an aerial view or a " bird's eye view " - you may just draw anything below the horizon line to create an impression of looking down at it.