Perspective Drawing

How to draw in perspective is something every artist should know.  Luckily, it’s very easy to do and can be used in so many ways.  Today, I will be going over a simple way to teach this technique.

Things you will need:  Pencil, Eraser, Paper, and a Ruler or some sort of straight edge.

One Point Perspective

To start, using a straight edge for all of the lines, draw a single horizontal line across a sheet of paper, preferably in landscape format.  This line is called the horizon.  Make a mark in the middle of the line, this will be what is called the vanishing point.  Now, draw several squares on the paper.  They can be anywhere you like, but for learning’s sake, it is best to have 3 squares, one above the horizon, one on the horizon, and one below the horizon.  Now, draw lines between the squares and the vanishing point.  These lines should connect the corners of the squares to the vanishing point, but do not draw lines that will go through the squares, only the corners that have a clear path to the vanishing point.  Once all of the lines have been drawn, for each square draw a vertical line between the lines connecting the square to the vanishing point, and draw a horizontal line between these lines as well.  These lines will complete the illusion of a three dimensional structure.  Now it is time to erase the lines connecting the cubes to the vanishing point.

Two Point Perspective

This is done in very much the same way as one point perspective, but instead of drawing squares, vertical lines are drawn.  Also, two vanishing points are drawn on either side of the horizon line.  Lines are drawn to connect the vertical lines to the vanishing points, 4 connecting lines per vertical line.  Then between the connecting lines, two more vertical lines are drawn, one on each side of the original vertical line.  Two faces of the cube are now complete.  The top and bottom corners will now have connecting lines drawn to the vanishing point, but two connecting lines per cube will have to be drawn to the vanishing point on the opposite side of the original vertical line.  This will complete the top or bottom face of the cube depending on which side of the horizon the cube is on.

Three and Four Point Perspective

These are more advance forms of perspective drawing.  I will not cover how to do these techniques, but I will show a few examples.

Three Point Perspective

Four Point Perspective

In The Classroom

There are so many ways to incorporate perspective drawing into an art lesson, but for my students I will likely have them draw a city in one or two point perspective.  They will be given the option to decide whether to use one point or two point.  I will show them how to draw details such as windows on buildings and houses, making sure to stress that everything has to connect to the vanishing points.  They will be asked to imagine that they are the mayor of a city, and that they are in charge of how the city will be built.  This can also be made into a large scale group project, he students could each draw their own building into a city of their design.  This lesson could also include teachings about city planning and and construction.

Contour Drawing

This is a fun way to loosen up the class.  Contour drawing is a great project to start with early in the school year.  The students will not be embarrassed or discouraged by another student being better than they are, because all of the drawings will look very different.  What you will need is large paper, markers (mistakes will be made, and they should not be erased), and a few things to sit on the tables for still life drawings.

The students should first draw their hand.  Their hand can be posed in any way that they choose, but they need to keep their hand away from their paper so that they can't see what their drawing hand is doing, this is called Blind Contour Drawing.  Also, they can't lift their marker from the paper at any time while drawing and they cannot look at the paper at any time while drawing.  They will need to draw the outline of their hand and also include small details such as wrinkles on the knuckles and palm.

Another way of doing contour drawing is called Modified Contour Drawing.  This is done in the same way as Blind Contour but the students will be allowed to look at their paper ONLY to lift and place their marker in a new position.  They still cannot look at the paper while drawing and their drawing subject should still be away from the paper so that they can't see what their drawing hand is doing.

Place a few random objects on the tables for still life subjects.  They can be anything from shoes to an old typewriter.  The objects should be something that is in the round, nothing like a book, but a stack of books could work if they are stacked staggeringly.  Once they have drawn their hands a few times they should move on to the still life objects.  Each student should have their own view of the objects so that each drawing is different.

Here are a few examples:

Mixture of Blind and Modified

Mixture of Blind and Modified

Modified

Modified

Modified

Modified

Modified

The First Day

It's your first day of teaching, and the students are coming down the hallway, what do you do?!  Keep calm and take a few things into consideration.  You'll need to be welcoming and understanding of your students.  There will be a lot of kids who each come from a different background, you need to try to learn where each of your students comes from.  Sure, you may not learn everything about your students on the first day, but you should try to learn as much as possible.


1)  Try a few basic art lessons where the students draw or paint something that interests them.

• Have them paint or draw a self portrait of themselves doing their dream job.
• Paint or draw the happiest moment of their life
• These works could then be shown by each student and explained to the class, so that not only you learn something about each student, but so does the class.
• Encourage the students to make comments and ask questions about each student's piece.

2)  Tell the students about yourself.

• Tell them why you love art and what you want your students to get out of the class.
• Explain some of the exciting projects that will be coming later in the school year.
• Do the projects mentioned above before the class period so that you too have something to show and talk about.
• Encourage the students to make comments about your work.  You should make comments about their work as well.  Good comments of course!

3)  Keep calm.

• The students will know immediately if you are nervous.  The best thing to do is just relax and be yourself, but also be relatable to the students so that they too can feel comfortable in the classroom.
• Show up well fed and well rested.  Prepare at least a week in advance and eat good food and get plenty of sleep.