A TANG FIGURE: LESSON 3: ONE POINT PERSPECTIVE

One of the major issues my class had with our previous assignment was that our subjects seemed to float on the table. The inaccuracy of our previous study lies within our ignorance of perspective... which is the base of Jane Wu lesson today; One Point Perspective.

When all the object share the same perspective, you can lay them on the same plane to avoid "floating" objects.

ONE POINT PERSPECTIVE

In perspective drawing, every set of parallel lines has its own vanishing point.

To draw one-point perspective, we arrange our subject so that one set of lines has a vanishing point right in front of us, and the set at right-angles goes out to infinity on each side - parallel, either straight up or straight across. See the railway sleepers, how they stay parallel, straight across in front of us? And the fenceposts stay perpendicular (straight up-and-down). The railway lines and fence wire move away from us, to the one vanishing point in the distance.

Let's draw a simple box using one-point perspective. First, draw a horizon line about one-third down your page. Use a small dot or line to mark a spot roughly in the middle of the line. That's your vanishing point. (Don't make it as big as this example - you want it to be small, so that all your lines finish in exactly the same spot.)

Now draw square or rectangle, well below and to one side of your vanishing point. Make sure your vertical lines are perpendicular (at right angles) to your horizon line, and your horizontal lines are parallel. No funny angles or wobbly lines! For a successful perspective drawing, you need straight lines and corners that meet exactly.

Now draw a line from each corner of your square or rectangle to the vanishing point. Make sure they are straight and finish exactly at the vanishing point.

Now comes the tricky bit. Draw a horizontal line, starting a little way along the bottom left vanishing line, across until it joins the bottom right vanishing line. This is the bottom edge of the back of your box. Make sure it is straight - parallel to the horizon and front edge.
Now, draw two vertical lines, straight up, from where that back line meets the two vanishing lines, up to the two top vanishing lines. Then add the horizontal line that joins them.

The two biggest problems at this stage of the drawing are lines at angles - they must be straight - and lines that don't quite meet. If you stop short or go past the vanishing line ever so slightly, with one of the lines, you'll have trouble getting your last line straight.

If your box is close to the horizon or vanishing point, you might find that the angles are very obtuse (wide), and hard to get right.

Now you can erase the vanishing lines. You can keep all the lines inside the box if you want it to be see-through, like a fishtank, or, you can carefully erase the back corner - the bottom left, back, and lower back lines, as in the example.

Now try drawing some more squares and rectangles in different places. Try one above the horizon line, and one right in the middle below the vanishing point.

Draw the vanishing lines for your boxes. So long as your ruler is lined up correctly, you can stop drawing just short of the vanishing point, so that it is still easy to see, and not lost in a tangle of lines.