I never learned how to draw linear perspective. I didn’t really notice the lack of it while learning to paint nature scenes, but urban sketching – drawing buildings and streets from life – really makes it obvious that I don’t know how lines work. So! I decided to try to learn, and to take you along on the ride with me.
You might find my revelations obvious if you’ve already learned this stuff, but this is new to me! I never learned it in school, and I would say I have below average spatial reasoning skills naturally. I think this makes me the perfect teacher/co-learner because I am not going to make it too complicated.
Books
I am learning out of three books:
- How to See It, How to Draw It: The Perspective Workbook by Matthew Brehm
- Perspective Without Pain by Philip Metzger
- Urban Sketching Handbook: Understanding Perspective by Stephanie Bower
Of these, I like the slimmest and most modest volume the best: Stephanie Bower’s Urban Sketching Handbook. Brehm’s book is exhaustive but I tend to find it overwhelming, while Metzger’s focus on drawing boxes bores me. Bower keeps to a tight, need-to-know overview and focuses on application: practical tips for using the knowledge in urban sketching right away.
One-Point Perspective: Key Points
Stuff that is closer to you looks bigger
This may seem super obvious but it is the key point on which all other points rest.
Foreshortening is the artistic technique of making an object appear three-dimensional by making some parts of it (closer to the viewer) larger and other parts (further from the viewer) smaller.
Horizon Line = Your Eye Level
The horizon line is the line where the sky meets the ground; easy to find if you’re drawing a seascape or wide open prairie. In a dense urban or forest setting, it’s likely to be hidden behind buildings, trees, and the like.
Luckily, there’s another way to find where it (should) be from your perspective. The horizon line is exactly the same as your eye level when you look straight ahead of you.
This is where the “perspective” part of perspective comes in: depending on the height of your eyes (if you’re sitting, standing, etc.), the scene will look different, with a different horizon placement relative to other objects in the scene.
(Image source: ucandostuff.com: What is the horizon line or eye level in perspective drawing and how to find it?)
Here’s a quick exercise: Take a look at some photos of people, and try to tell where the photographer was in relation to the people. You can tell by where the horizon is relative to the people’s heads. (Using beach photos makes it easy to find the horizon.) If the horizon’s above the people’s heads, the photographer shot from above, perhaps standing uphill from them or from a building. If the horizon’s below the people’s heads, the photographer shot from below, sitting or laying on the ground.
People are about the same height
In the scheme of things, most humans tend to be roughly the same height, give or take a few inches. So when you draw standing up, other standing people around you will generally have their heads aligned right around the horizon line. Further-away people will be smaller, but their heads will still be aligned. Cool huh?
Vanishing Point
If there are lines in your scene that are parallel (to each other, and to you), like the edges of railroad tracks if you are illegally and unsafely standing on them, the vanishing point is the point where these lines seem to converge in the distance.
The vanishing point will be along the horizon line/your eye line.
The vanishing point doesn’t need to be in the middle
If you are standing smack in between two parallel lines, the vanishing point will be in the middle of the horizon line. But if you’re somewhere else relative to the parallel lines, the vanishing point may not be in the middle.
For example, this photographer was standing (more safely) alongside the tracks. The vanishing point is off to the right.
Perpendicular lines remain straight
Horizontal lines that are perpendicular to you will remain straight. So will vertical lines, like columns. Only lines parallel to you, the viewer, seem to converge/become diagonal.
Note how the straight lines (like columns and railroad ties) seem to get closer together as they recede into the distance.
Applying One-Point Perspective
Enough theory, how do you apply this information? Stephanie Bower’s book has the best how-to, giving a quick 5-step process for applying perspective when urban sketching:
- Draw the basic shapes
- Find the vanishing point
- Find your eye-level line
- Break big shapes into smaller shapes
- Add detail, tone, color
Projects
I tend not to be excited about drawing buildings, I love power lines and often find my knowledge of perspective fails me when I try to draw them. I have tons of sunset power line photos in my camera roll so I grabbed one.
Parallel lines here include the edges of the sidewalks and street, tops of buildings (though the roofs are different shapes, they’re about the same height), and of course the power lines. Sometimes power lines are slack and not quite straight, but they generally follow parallel lines that are also parallel to the street. And since I was standing on the sidewalk, all these lines are parallel to me.
I started by making a quick thumbnail.
The pink horizontal line about a quarter of the way up from the bottom is the horizon line. I located the vanishing point behind the power pole. All the diagonal lines meet at that same point.
I also drew the scene in pencil in my sketchbook, and because it was a bit messy, I decided to ink it with a felt-tip fineliner and erase the pencil marks, keeping the shapes and colors pretty simple. (I edited out the cars because I did not want to draw them.)
While I feel like I made some missteps here, I do think the underdrawing and ruler-sharp lines helped me to place it in a perspective frame that makes the depth more coherent than I could achieve without it. I know my instincts about perspective are all wrong because I was repeatedly tempted to put lines and shapes in different places, and had to force myself to remember to draw diagonal lines from the VP using a ruler, and to respect them.
I had simplified this scene to the point of aligning the power lines so that I only had to draw the one in front. I decided to make another attempt using a line of power poles which get smaller as they recede.
This time, I tried to integrate perspective into a more standard process for me, without the felt-tip. I lightly sketched the underdrawing in pink pencil (using my trusty ruler), and then painted right on top of it.
I actually kind of like this even though now that I look at my sketch and my scene and how giant the power poles are compared to the buildings, I can see that I inadvertently used a different vanishing point for each. Whoops! Just goes to show how easy it can be to mess up, even though the principals seem easy.
I also did not follow a rule about how far apart the power poles should be; I eyeballed it. I’m sure there is a rule so I should learn it!
Conclusion
I grudgingly admit that learning how to do perspective, and get better at it, is a good idea.
Some important lessons for me:
- The vanishing point must be identified and marked on the sketch. Eyeballing it won’t do. “Remembering where it was” won’t do.
- A ruler must be used to draw lines between other objects and the VP. Freehanding it won’t do.
- I must believe in it. A lot of my issues come from thinking that I know better and surely the perspective lines must be wrong. I don’t, and they’re not.
On my to-learn list:
- Figure out how to space out repeating objects.
- Continue on to two-point perspective.