Perspective 1
Everyone is familiar with the way a railway line disappears to a point as it reaches the horizon. The same principle applies to absolutely everything in your drawing and while the rules themselves are relatively simple, they are not always obviously so.
The Horizon
The horizon is the key
to perspective. It denotes the limit of what you can see at ground level and
it indicates the viewer's height in relation to what can be seen. Anything
above or taller than the viewer is above the horizon, anything shorter or
below the viewer is below the horizon. Vanishing points will also generally
be on this line.
The Vanishing
Point
As objects become
further away from the viewer, they appear smaller. Lines that are parallel,
horizontal and straight will eventually meet and vanish at a point on the
horizon. This applies to lines of objects such as telegraph poles too.
Basic
Perspective
In simple cases,
such as the drawing above, all the objects run parallel to each other. Even
the tops and bottoms of the telegraph poles form a straight line. All these
lines meet at the same vanishing point on the horizon. When drawing something
like this, it is often helpful to draw the lines in faintly, then erase them
when details such as the poles have been drawn in.
Multiple
Vanishing Points
Real life objects
such as houses become more complicated because they obey several vanishing
points. Each wall of the house will have its own vanishing point and everything
on that wall, including doors, windows and window sills, will vanish at the
same point if a continuous line is drawn from it. In the drawing above, there
are two obvious vanishing points, but a further point can be found from the
lines on the eaves of the roof; this vanishing point will be in the sky because
the roof slopes upwards. Notice where the horizon passes through the doors
and windows, just where you would draw the face of a person standing there.
© Adrian James 2001
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