Determine the Perspective.
The diagrams in this section use cubes to help further explain one-point perspective. The front of
the cube is directly facing you, and so you are only dealing with one vanishing point. All of the
horizontal sides of the cube are parallel, and the cube is seen from three different eye levels.
The eye level of the viewer is above
the cube. Although the top of the
cube is visible, notice that you can
only see a small portion of it. This
means that the eye level is not that
far away from the top of the cube.
Both sides of the cube, being below
eye level, must therefore come up to
a vanishing point at eye level.
To better illustrate this point, take a
ruler, lay it along the two top sides of
the cube, and join those lines
together. You now have your vanish-
ing point and the eye level, or hori-
zon line. See how you can create a
sense of depth by making parallel
lines converge? The vertical lines
(front and rear) on the front sides of
the cube always remain vertical. This
situation is similar to the photograph
of the kitchen island; the island is
simply a long cube.Where is the horizon line in this
example? Is it above or below the
cube? It is actually in the middle of
the cube. You can see that the top
side of the cube is angling down.
However, you cannot see the bottom
of the cube, as it is obscured by the
table. This can occur in everyday life
(see the photo of the building on
page 77). If this does happen, you
can make a well-informed guess
about the angle of the line that is
obscured, because you now under-
stand the laws of perspective. This
knowledge relieves you from unnec-
essary frustration when drawing.
Understand these simple points, and
you can spend more time concen-
trating on the quality of your drawing
instead of trying to determine the
correct perspective.Here, the top of the cube is now
even more visible than in the previ-
ous example. The eye level must
therefore be higher. The parallel
sides of the top of the cube are again
converging to a vanishing point, but
they are doing so less abruptly,
because there is a greater distance
between the eye level, or horizon
line, and the top of the cube. As
shown in the photo on page 76, the
rugs are similar in perspective to the
top of this cube.