Let’s look at this picture. It shows a one-point perspective view. All of the lines that are parallel to the horizon (at right angles to the direction of our gaze) such as the railway sleepers and fence posts—go straight across or straight up and down. If they were longer, they’d keep going straight across, or straight up and down. These lines will always stay the same distance apart and never meet each other. In contrast, the lines moving away from us appear to get closer together as they get more distant. These lines meet at a vanishing point in the middle distance of the picture. To draw using one-point perspective, we arrange our view of the subject so that one set of visible lines has a vanishing point right in front of us. At the same time, the set at right-angles goes out to infinity on each side. So if it’s a road, it goes straight away from us, or if it is a house, one wall goes straight across in front of us, not sloping. In reality, of course, there are always objects which won’t be lined up perfectly. For now, let’s keep things simple. Here’s a photograph of a box on a table. Again, it shows us how one set of lines remain parallel and the other set vanishes to a point. Note that the line across the back is not the horizon line. It’s the edge of the table and is lower than my eye level, and so, lower than the horizon. If we continue the lines made by the edges of the box, they meet at a point above the table and this is at eye level. Were we able to see into the distance, this vanishing point would be on the horizon. At the same time, notice how the front edges of the box are quite parallel.
Draw a horizon line about one-third down your page.Use a small dot or line to mark a spot roughly in the middle of the line. That’s your vanishing point.
Note: Don’t make your vanishing point as big as this example. You want it to be small so that all your lines finish in exactly the same spot.
Draw a horizontal line, starting a little way along the bottom left vanishing line, across until it joins the bottom right vanishing line. This is the bottom edge of the back of your box. Make sure it is straight and parallel to the horizon and front edge.Draw two vertical lines, straight up, from where that back line meets the two vanishing lines, up to the two top vanishing lines.Add the horizontal line that joins the two verticals you just drew.
The two biggest problems at this stage of the drawing are lines at angles—they must be straight—and lines that don’t quite meet. If you stop short or go past the vanishing line ever so slightly, with one of the lines, you’ll have trouble getting your last line straight. If your box is close to the horizon or vanishing point, you might find that the angles are very obtuse (wide) and hard to get right.
Try drawing more squares and rectangles in different places.Place one above the horizon line and one right in the middle below the vanishing point so you can see the effects.
