Learning perspective drawing is like riding a bike. A little tricky at first, but once you’ve got it… it clicks! It becomes second nature and you don’t have to think about it so much. There are many different types of perspective drawing, but ONE POINT PERSPECTIVE is a great one for beginning artist to start with. This blog goes over all the basics and includes a step by step video tutorial and photos to work at your own pace.
Looking for how to do two point perspective drawing? Check out my blog post here.
Here are a few key things you need to know before beginning a one point perspective drawing:
Every perspective drawing has two key features: a horizon line and vanishing point(s).
The horizon line is the line that defines where the sky meets the ground. Artists can play around with how high or low on the picture plane the vanishing point sits to adjust the point of view. On the horizon line sits your vanishing point(s). If a perspective drawing has one vanishing point, it is called one point perspective. Two vanishing points… two point perspective. See that pattern?
The three types of perspective lines:
There are three key lines to understand when creating a perspective drawing. As seen in the photos below, these three lines are converging lines, parallel lines, and perpendicular lines. Converging lines are diagonal lines that converge into the vanishing point. Parallel lines are lines that run parallel to this horizon line. Perpendicular lines are lines that intersect with the horizon line at a 90 degree angle.
What materials will I need?
I recommend a piece of paper, pencil with eraser, and a ruler. It’s great to get a feel for the piece of paper. Good old graph paper is AMAZING to use as you are learning because it lays out a nice grid of lines to build on. You may also print out this free one point perspective template below to help you render your drawing on.
If you are feeling tech savvy and have some experience with digital drawing, you can also accomplish this digitally. In my tutorial I use a free software from AutoDesk called SketchBook. It’s awesome, because it has this really cool perspective tool that helps to keep your lines accurate.
I love the Wacom Intuos drawing tablet for beginning digital artists. It’s easy to use, not overly expensive, and has great touch response!
Video tutorial:
Step by step one point perspective with photos!
Step 1: Create your railroad tracks. Draw two CONVERGING rail lines that come out from the vanishing point in the shape of an upside down V. Then draw your train tracks. They will be PARALLEL to the horizon line. Close to the vanishing point, tracks will be close together, less detailed, and very tiny! As you move away form the vanishing point, they will get larger, more detailed and spread out
Step 2: Add a building. The front side will be a linear rectangle. The top and bottom will be PARALLEL to the horizon line and the left and right side will be PERPENDICULAR. The side wall of the building will extend from the corners with CONVERGING lines. The end of the building will be drawn with a straight PERPENDICULAR line. Map out any windows using the same techniques.
Step 3: Add details! Explore adding a chimney and another tall building off in the distance following the same technique we used for the building. Add some bricks and smoke onto the chimney.
Step 4: Add street lights. Following CONVERGING lines on the top and bottom, draw street lights that are PERPENDICULAR to the horizon line. Straight, vertical, and up and down! They will be larger, more detailed, and space out, but get closer, less detailed and smaller as they approach the vanishing point.
Step 5: Add more details! Add a sun, some clouds, trees, shrubbery, etc. For the clouds, make them smaller closer to the sun and larger as they move away to add some more perspective.
Step 6: Add some color! If you working digitally, add a layer UNDER your lines and add some color. (see image below) Explore some shadows and more.
If you are working on paper, you can outline the lines with a sharpie and then color it in with a material of your choice.
I hope you found this useful! Do you have experience with perspective drawing? Do you enjoy it? Despise it? If so, I hope this helped you to hate it less! 🙂 I PROMISE it’s like riding a bike… kinda tricky at first, but it becomes second nature once you’ve got it down. Thanks again for checking this out! If you want to keep up with latest from Make a Mark Studios, please follow us on Facebook and instagram!
-Stephanie Villiotis
Thank you for making such detailed material. It is very helpful.
Best wishes.
You’re very welcome, Richa! I’m so glad you found this helpful. That’s why I do what I do 🙂