Design work often involves practicing shapes on scraps of paper.
Drawing an interior room or exterior landscape uses the same basic skills and tools. The most challenging aspect for a novice artist or designer centers on create perspective so that the drawing is in scale and has depth. It is important to remember that everything you see has a size and that you can use size dimensions to correctly scale any item in the scene, with a few simple techniques and tips to help you. Once you can render the basic elements, the detail work becomes much easier.
Instructions
1. Locate a large perspective graph or grid paper that features the angles you want to capture in your drawing. Try to use the largest size that will fit on your drawing table as this will make rendering your details easier. Tape the graph to the table so that the horizontal line is straight with your straight edge.
2. Place tracing paper over the graph paper and tape it down securely. Try not to tape onto the graph paper as this will destroy the printed graph over time.
3. Sight the corner of one wall. Draw a vertical line representing that corner. All perspective grid papers have a horizon line. If you mark an 8-foot tall wall showing 4 feet above the horizon and 4 feet below the horizon, you are also saying your viewpoint is at 4 feet tall. Since the typical person is 5- to 6-feet tall, you will want to move more of your wall above the horizon and less below. The grid of your paper may allow you a scale of 1 inch per 1 foot.
4. Follow the perspective lines and draw your ceiling corner away from your top wall corner mark. Draw your floor corner, too. With a one-point perspective paper your lines away from the corner on the other side of the vertical line will each be horizontal. With a two-point perspective or a room-cube perspective you will have both horizontal and radiating lines.
5. Once you plot in your basic ceiling, wall corners and floor angles you can sketch in furniture based on the actual size of each piece and its location in the room. If a table is 3 feet from the wall and 3 feet from the adjacent wall, locate that spot on the grid. Measure the table size and follow the grid lines to plot it out. Draw in all your box shapes first and transform curved objects into boxes to sketch them in the space. Continue until each object is sketched in the space.
6. Draw from the foreground to the background. Refine your shapes as you draw. The objects closest to you, the viewer, will block out parts of objects behind them. Draw only the parts that are visible. Continue moving deeper into the drawing until all of the shapes are in position. Erase all of the lines that reflect portions of objects that cannot be seen because they are blocked by other items. Refine each object into its actual shape using the perspective grid to keep items the same size and shape. For items not aligned to the grid, draw in their "space" and hold those areas open.
7. Use a secondary grid of the same scale to plot furniture positioned diagonally or at an angle to the other furniture and walls. Lift your tracing paper and tape down the new grid. Tape down a fresh piece of tracing paper and sketch out the furniture item. This keeps you from struggling with the old perspective. Once you have the item roughed out, bring back your original tracing paper and tape it over the empty space in your drawing. With the rough already drawn you will only need to trace it out based on what is visible behind other furnishings. You can do this for each differently angled piece.
8. Use the same techniques when designing a landscape. A landscape or home garden is an exterior room that is limited by foliage. Measure and convert items in the landscape to the grid for position and size. The back wall of your outdoor room is the point where your landscape becomes less detailed or if your garden ends at a fence or wall.
