Teach Yourself Visually Drawing

Create a Perspective Grid.

Once you understand the terms vanishing pointand horizon line, you can move an object around

within a space, even if it doesn’t happen in real life.

Here is a diagram of two cubes in a three-dimensional space. These cubes,
which obey the laws of one-point perspective, are the same size. As you
can see, if you place an object on a surface (floor or table) and draw lines
to its vanishing point, you are able to place it anywhere between the fore-
ground and background and still maintain its correct proportions.

This is a very useful technique for constructing a room with furniture that
does not exist in reality. If you apply the laws of one-point perspective, you
can convincingly achieve the illusion of reality. Practice this exercise by
drawing a cube, placing it in a grid, and moving it around your space.

Vanishing Point

Height

of Cube

Horizon Line

Vanishing Point and Eye Level

Viewer or Vantage Point

C

A B

C D

AB

D

CREATE A CUBE ON A PERSPECTIVE GRID

Once you have determined the width and depth of the cube in perspec-
tive, as seen in the diagram above, it’s easy to transform this into a three-
dimensional cube. The first thing to determine is the height of the cube
that you would like to draw. This is achieved by drawing two vertical lines
starting on the two front corners of your cube to the determined height. In
this case, it’s an arbitrary height. The next step is to connect the two tops
of the vertical lines (A and B) with a horizontal line. Now simply draw the
two top corners back to the vanishing point. Next, repeat the same proce-
dure on the two rear corners of the footprint, bringing them up to the
lines that you drew to the vanishing point. Now connect these two points
(C and D) with a horizontal line, and you will see that you have now
drawn a cube in perspective.

Applying the lessons from the previous two pages, you can construct a
cube on your grid at any point within the space of your grid.

In this image, the cars are all parked along the side of the street. Just like
the cube example, they recede toward the vanishing point at the same
height, because most of them are the same height, more or less. You
could draw in another car near the corner, and you would know its exact
height and the size of the wheels, if the cars were a similar size.