Roads and rail lines are classic subjects of one-point perspective drawing.
Until the Renaissance, artists had not worked out the rules for making a two-dimensional drawing convey three-dimensional space. This is why medieval drawings often have a strange sense of scale, showing people as large as the castles they are attacking. However, artists during the Renaissance realized that parallel lines appear to converge as they become more distant. This is the key to successful perspective drawing. However, it is also important to know which lines should converge and where.
Instructions
One-Point Perspective Drawing
1. Use one-point drawing when drawing objects or scenes in which all the visible faces of objects, other than those facing directly outward towards the viewer, are angled inward towards the center of the scene. An example would be drawing a room when sat facing square on to the back wall, or looking down the street from the middle of the road. Do not use if you also can see the faces pointing outward from the center.
2. Set a point in the middle of the drawing just above your horizon line. First draw the faces of the objects that face you directly. Draw these without distortion; keep the square front of a building square without changing any of the angles.
3. Draw any lines that convey depth leading away from the edges of your forward-facing shapes. Align them all with the point above the horizon you drew first. Line up the ruler between the corner of the forward face and the point and draw the line as long as you want the object. Notice how the lines converge. Link the vertical lines with horizontal and vertical lines to show the rear edge.
Two-Point Perspective
4. Use two-point perspective when you can see both the inward- and outward-facing faces of objects; for example, when standing facing the corner of a building with the walls receding away from you in different directions.
5. Draw two points with which to line up the perspective lines, one at each side of the paper. If you will be drawing objects close to the paper edges it can be better to set your points off the paper. Draw them on the table and keep the paper in place.
6. Draw faces that are facing toward you as before using horizontal and vertical lines. However, lines that recede away to the left should now be lined up with the point off to the left, and vice versa to the right.
Isometric Drawing
7. Use isometric drawing to convey accurate information in three-dimensional drawing. This is helpful for drawing plans or schematics. Use isometric dot paper. Turn it so that the longest distance between dots on a line is on the horizontal.
8. Draw shapes with their corners on the dots. Position objects diagonally so they have one vertical edge closest to you. Start by drawing the closest vertical edge between the vertical dots. Now draw receding lines above an object by going from dot to diagonally and upward, if the face you are drawing is above the object, or downward if it is below.
9. Continue drawing upward or downward when drawing the edges that come inward to join at the rear corner of the shape. The isometric scale keeps all lengths in proportion; a line between two neighboring dots counts as the same length whether it goes horizontally, diagonally or vertically.
