Why stop here? Why not apply this one-point perspective technique out in the real world to really see how it works? Grab your clear clipboard with a piece of clear Write-On Film taped to it, along with your fine-point black Sharpies. Walk down your driveway to the street. Look down the street, either way (it doesn’t matter); just pick the direction that is the most visually interesting. Close one eye, and trace what you see by looking through your clear clipboard. To stabilize your arm, lean against a stationary object, such as your mailbox or a parked car. Your vanishing point is going to be a bit off to the right or left of center as you will not be standing in the middle of the street. However, you will be delighted with your black ink tracing. Pretty neat to see how this vanishing point works in reality, yes?
Try this sitting on a bench downtown, in the park, or on a pier. I actually did this in a department store while looking up the escalators. I couldn’t resist! The unifor-mity and repeated pattern were just too visually compelling. A thousand escalator steps all lined up to a single vanishing point. A veritable one-point-perspective drawing lottery win! After the sixth curious stare from a passing shopper, I put my clipboard down, but not before I finished the tracing of the foreshortened escalator.
You can achieve a similar exercise by taking a photo and placing a clear plastic Write-On Film over it. It’s not as fun or adventurous (or as annoying to people trying to get around you on the sidewalk), but taking digital pictures of your target view is another way to make this exercise work. For example, when I was inspired by the one-point perspective view while walking along Fifth Avenue in New York City, I should have taken a picture rather than stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to draw amid several hundred hurried New York pedestrians. It took five attempts, crossing an intersection over and over again, to successfully capture the image in my mind.
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Student examples
Here are three great student examples from this lesson to inspire you to keep drawing every day!
By Ann Nelson
By Michael Lane
By Michele Proos
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L E S S O N 2 4
A TOWER IN TWO-POINT
PERSPECTIVE
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If you enjoyed experimenting with one-point perspective, you are really going to have fun with two-point perspective. Two-point perspective is using two guide dots on a horizon line to draw an object above and below your eye level. I could go on for three pages elaborating on this definition, but as you and I now know, a picture is worth a thousand words, so let’s draw.
In this lesson we will really focus on the laws of drawing size and placement.
With these two vanishing-point guide dots, you are going to see immediately why size and placement are such powerful concepts.
1. Very lightly, sketch a horizon line. Draw this å
horizon line all the way across your paper.
2. Place two vanishing-point guide dots on the
horizon line.
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3. Draw a tall vertical line in the center of your horizon line to position your tower.
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4. Using your ruler or a straightedge of a magazine, book, or scratch piece of paper, draw guide lines from the left vanishing point to the top and è
bottom of your tower.
5. Now do the same for the right side. Using
your ruler or a straightedge, lightly draw guide lines from the right vanishing point to the top and bottom of your tower.
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6. Draw two vertical lines on either side of your center vertical line to determine how thick you want the tower to be.
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7. Darken and define the edges of your tower
and horizon line. Erase your extra guide lines.
Draw a guide dot below the center bottom
corner of your tower. Add guide lines lining up with your vanishing points. This will begin to
shape the pedestal.
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8. Using your vanishing points, draw in the
back sides of the pedestal. Now, repeat this
process to begin to shape in the top capstone
of the tower.
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9. Draw the sides of the capstone and
pedestal with two vertical guide lines.
10. Draw the thickness lines for the pedestal
and the capstone lined up with the vanishing
points.
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11. Determine where your light source will be
positioned. Add a cast shadow opposite the
light source. This drawing is an excellent visual example of how the Nine Fundamental Laws of
Drawing work and why. For example, using your
straightedge to extend the bottom right edge of the tower in a southwest direction will position the cast shadow lower on the surface of the
page, making it appear closer (placement).
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Also, by using these vanishing points, you have drawn the near corner of your tower larger
(size). Adding shading to all the surfaces opposite the light source will create the illusion that the tower is standing in a three-dimensional
space. Notice how I’ve added a cast shadow
under the top capstone and at the base of the
to help visually hold the objects’ components
securely together, like visual glue.
11
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Let’s review how we’ve applied the Nine Fundamental Laws of Drawing to a two-point-perspective drawing:
1. Foreshortening: Look at the bottom pedestal of the tower. Notice how the top of this pedestal is a foreshortened square. By distorting this into a foreshortened shape, you create the illusion that one part is closer to your eye.
2. Placement: See how the lowest point in the tower is also the nearest point in your drawing. The lowest point of the tower appears to be closer.
3. Size: Notice how the largest part of the tower is the center. This is where the guide lines to both side vanishing points come together. The largest part of the tower appears to be closer.
4. Overlapping: Look at how the center column of the tower partially blocks the view of the pedestal and the capstone. This overlapping creates the illusion of near and far.
5. Shading: Shading the tower opposite the light source creates depth.
6. Shadow: Using the right vanishing point to draw the shadow guide line visually anchors the tower to the ground, rather than have it appear to be floating in space.
7.
Contour: You could add a water pipe jutting out of the building using one of the vanishing points as a direction guide to draw your contour lines.
8. Horizon: Look how the entire drawing is based on the position of the horizon line between the two vanishing points.
9. Density: You could draw other smaller buildings behind this tower, lined up with these same two vanishing points. You would draw them lighter and less distinct to create the illusion of atmosphere.
An excellent way to remember all Nine Fundamental Laws of Drawing is to create a wacky cartoon story in your imagination based on the first letters of each of the Nine Laws in proper sequence (F, P, S, O, S, S, C, H, D). Here is what I teach in my classes, but feel free to create your own wild visual images. The more outlandish and exaggerated your story is, the better your reca
ll of it will be. In your imagination picture “fluffy pillows surfing on super small carrots holding dinosaurs.”
This is a fun, whimsical whacky visual chain that will enable you to remember these Nine Laws forever! I’m serious. I taught a big burly cowboy named “Rock” (who just happened to have won the world bull-riding competition in New York City!) this memory trick on an airplane in less than four minutes! He then drew a very cool rose in 3-D for his wife. Yes, I do have the most interesting weekly plane rides!
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Lesson 24: Bonus Challenge
Now, let’s draw a second tower, with multiple levels and varying widths.
1. Draw a horizon line all the way across your paper.
Place your vanishing points near the outside edges of your paper as far apart as possible. If you place your vanishing points too close together, your two-point perspective will look skewed, as if you were looking through a fishbowl. This is actually a great point to explore on your own. Try drawing this tower several times, each time placing the vanishing points closer and closer together. If you do, you will notice increasing distortion. A good example of this is M. C.
Escher’s Self-Portrait in Spherical Mirror, where he drew a portrait of himself looking into a round glass globe (Google it when you get a chance).
2. Draw the center line to position your tower.
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3. Using your straightedge or a side of a piece of paper, lightly sketch in the top of the tower with guide lines from the vanishing points.
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4. Draw guide dots down the center vertical line to determine the position of the tower levels.
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5. Using a ruler or any straightedge, lightly draw the guide lines from each center guide dot to the vanishing points.
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6. Define the top tower with vertical lines. Pay attention to these vertical lines, and match
them with your center vertical line. You can also double-check the vertical angle of these lines
with the vertical side edges of your drawing paper.
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7. Define the next two levels, making sure to
keep the sides vertical.
8. Draw a level of the tower both above and
below your eye level. Remember that your eye
level is the horizon line.
Be very attentive to the vanishing points
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when you draw the back edge of the bottom
foreshortened platform. Notice how this line
disappears behind the wall of the tower, not
into the corner, but behind the corner. This is the most common mistake that many students make.
9. Complete this two-point-perspective mul-
tilevel tower by adding shading, shadows, and
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details, such as tiny windows. By drawing
small windows, you create the illusion that the tower is enormous. (Likewise, drawing big
leaves on a tree makes the tree look smaller;
drawing small leaves on a tree makes it appear larger. Draw big eyes on a face to make it look smaller, like a baby; draw small eyes on a face to make it look larger and older.) Playing with proportion is a wonderful trick, which we will dive into more deeply in a later lesson.
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Student example
Take a look at how this student practiced this lesson. Nice job, eh?
By Michael Lane
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L E S S O N 2 5
A CASTLE IN TWO-POINT
PERSPECTIVE
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As you enjoyed that very cool two-point-perspective tower in the last lesson, let’s explore this two-point (vanishing point) a bit more. Ever since my first visit to Europe thirty years ago, I’ve been fascinated by castles. It seemed to me that there was a castle or two in every village, hamlet, town, and major city. What really amazed me was the age of these enchanting castles, often several hundred years old. I remember the adjacent pubs had thick wood tables with names carved into them dating back to 1700s, whoa!
In this lesson we will build on your two-point-perspective drawing skills by applying size, placement, shading, shadows, and repetition. We will practice using the vanishing points to create the visual illusion of a medieval castle really existing in three dimensions on your paper.
1. Draw a long horizon line across your paper.
2. Establish your two vanishing points by
drawing two guide dots as I have illus-
å
trated. The farther apart you can place
these guide dots, the better. If you place
your guide dot vanishing points too close
ç
together, your two-point-perspective
drawing will become really distorted,
much like looking at an image on the
back of a spoon or round bowl. A good
example of this would be M. C. Escher’s
Self-Portrait in Spherical Mirror, where he is looking at his own reflection in a
reflective sphere.
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3. Draw the center line of the castle, half
above your eye level, half below your eye
level. Notice how the terms “horizon
line” and “eye level” can be interchanged.
4. Lightly sketch the guide lines for the
top and bottom edges of the castle.
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5. Place two guide dots above your
eye level, and two below your eye
level on the center line of the castle.
This will establish the guide lines for
the turrets, windows, and buttress
ramps.
6. Lightly draw all the guide lines
using a straightedge. Over the years
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I’ve experimented with many helpful
devices for drawing these vanishing-
point guide lines. One of my favorites
is securing a rubber band between the
two vanishing points with a piece of
cardboard behind the drawing and
thumbtacks on the vanishing points. I
will discuss this technique in detail in
this chapter’s Bonus Challenge.
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7. Draw the turrets, making sure to
pay attention to the vertical lines.
8. Carefully line up your straightedge
from the top near corner of each tur-
ret with the opposite vanishing point.
If the turret is on the right side of the
castle, line up the thickness with the
left vanishing point. If the turret is on
í
the left side of the castle, line up the
thickness with the right vanishing
point—just the opposite of the thick-
ness rule. This is because the
thickness rule applies to doors, win-
dows, holes—to spaces cut out of a
drawing. The turrets are actually
blocks pushing out of the object. If
you had drawn a top level above the
&nb
sp; turrets closing them into windows, we
would be back to the thickness rule.
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Interesting?
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9. Draw the windows on the left
side of the castle by lining up the
top and bottom of the windows
with the vanishing point on the
left side. Pay attention to the ver-
tical lines. Sagging windows would
be very distracting. Easy problem
to avoid: Just keep darting your
eyes from the vertical edge of your
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paper to the vertical center line to
the vertical line you are drawing.
In the time it takes me to draw
one window’s vertical edge, I’ve
probably darted my eyes to the
sides and center three or four
times.
10. Now, we go back to our tried,
tested, and true thickness rule: If
the window is on the right side,
the thickness is on the right side;
if the window is on the left side,
the thickness is on the left side.
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Use your straightedge to line up
the far top corner of each window,
with the vanishing point on the
right side. Draw the thickness as
wide or as thin as you like.
11. Draw the rows of buttress
ramps with vertical lines. Draw the
bottom of the ramp lined up with
the opposite vanishing point.
11
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12. Draw the top slant of the but-
tress ramps. Keep this angle in
mind, as all the ramps that follow
will match this angle exactly.
13. Lightly sketch in vanishing-
point guide lines from the top and
bottom corners of the buttress
ramps on the right and left side of
12
the castle.
14. Matching the near angle of the