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.