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Perspective basics

Introduction
Getting the right perspective on a drawing is challanging for many. This "basics" tutoiral covers some simple techniques for using perspective. There are many books and detailed tutorials available .

In this tutorial I use "Houses" for my examples of different kinds of perspective.

Points, Horizon, and Lines
You may have heard the term "One Point Perspective" (or two point or whatever). A "Point" is just that - a point on your paper where you are starting. Normally I mark my points with a small, light, dot. Then draw lines from one or more points to help place where things, like the houses, should go. Often the point (or points) are called the "Vanishing Point" because this is the point where things get too far away to see anymore so they "vanish". Your lines don't have to be perfectly straight, so long as you get them approximately right the perspective will look good.

You may also have heard the term "Horizon Line". The horizon line is the line between the earth (or water!) and the sky.

One Point Houses

Now that we have all those basic terms out of the way lets get on to something interesting! In one point perspective you have just that - ONE point. From this point you can draw the diagonal lines which you will use to place objects. So long as they are approximately straight lines that begin at your "point" it doesn't matter how many you draw or how far apart they are. The examples here show houses/towns drawn with one point perspective.

With the town I began by drawing a "Horizon Line" and placing my "Point" (shown in pink). I then sketched out some diagonal lines which I used to place the basic houses on either side of the road. You can use straight vertical (up and down) lines to place where the houses will go as shown in the example. Once I had the basic sketch I used more lines to place the windows, doors etc. If your point is close to the middle, like mine, and you are worried about it looking empty you can "cap" or "wall" the picture before it reaches the vanishing point - in my example I used a house in the distance to keep the viewer's interest within my town.

In the second example you can see that the point you use doesn't have to be centered on the horizon line, or even in the picture at all! (if your paper isn't big enough just attach a second sheet to the side to help you place the point.

On both these examples the sides of the buildings are drawn using lines that are the same angle as the horizon line (in other words parallel to the horizon line). For a more 3D look you can use two or three point perspective.

Two Point Houses
Two point perspective uses two vanishing points, either inside out outside your drawing. As you can see in the top example the left side of the house was drawn along the lines from the left vanishing point and the right side along lines from the right vanishing point. Note how the house on the far left of that picture is drawn along a line from the RIGHT vanishing point. Using lines from these vanishing points you can build all sorts of 3D looking objects. The bottom house in the example is made of a number of squares/cubes.

Placing Windows, Doors, and Roofs
Having trouble drawing the roof on your house? Placing the windows and doors? A trick for placing windows and doors is to look at the side of your house as a rectangle or square. If you draw a line from each corner to the opposite corner you end up with an "X" where the center is the center of that wall, this makes it easy to place a window in the exact middle. Want it centered in the upper half or to the right or left side? Draw a line through the middle of your X so you have two rectangles and then divide the smaller rectangles with an X again. Adding the roof isn't so hard, you can find the middle by drawing a line up the middle of your X and just making it longer, then draw from that point to each corner of your wall and you know basically where the roof should be.

Perspective Tricks
Now I will cover some techniques that can be used to create the illusion of perspective (even without using a vanishing point).

As shown in the image above you can create a feeling of depth and distance by using the following techniques:

Contrast
Areas "closer" to the viewer have more contrast (and generally be darker).

Detail
Areas "closer" to the viewer have more detail, distant shapes may be nothing more than shadow type shapes.

Color
By using a color transition you can really help separate the foreground and background. Generally color transitions are between warm and cool colors. Things close to you tend to be warmer, and farther away tend to be cooler - but it depends what you're drawing. For example if you were drawing a sunset over the water the distance (near the sun) would probably have the most warmth, while areas closer to the viewer would be much more cool as the sun might no longer be hitting them.

Using three depths
It's easiest to deal with most pictures as if there are at least three levels of depth (you could use more as you need them). Close, Middle, and Distance. The closest objects/places will have the most detail, contrast etc., the distant objects will have the least, and the middle objects will have some detail etc. (but not as much as the closest ones).

On focal points...
Most of the ideas mentioned above can ALSO be used to create focal points. A focal point is the place a person looks first in an image. So while the things listed above can create depth they change depending on your focal point. For example: if you were drawing a lighthouse shinning out into the fog, even if it were not the closest object/area to the viewer it would probably have more contrast because of the light (making it the focal point).

A note on the edges of images...
A common mistake in creating images with "depth" and/or focal points is to forget the border when drawing the image. For example if you create an image with white or very light colors on the edges of the image and then put a black border around it you will suddenly have a lot of contrast on the edges of the picture - this can defeat the feeling of depth and/or the focal point. If you do want to use light colors near the edge of an image it's best to use a lighter border/frame. If you are going to use a dark frame you may want to be careful that you have a darker/medium color between it and the lighter colors of your picture.