One Point Perspective

Anybody who has taken an art class has done one-point perspective at some point. It looks kind of like this in real life:

The docks in Silverdale, Washington.

And nothing like that when drawn for those Middle School art projects we did.

That is one looooong living room.

And while it's useful to learn one point perspective and doing those drawings taught it to us, they never ended up looking very good. Which can be frustrating if you want to draw something from your head.

One of the keys to drawing without explicit reference photos is getting a good grip on perspective. I've had pictures ruined after a lot of work was put into them simply because I realized the perspective was wrong and it was too late to fix it.

If you want to get perspective right, it really helps to have a photo or a real life reference. It is, however, not completely necessary. It is possible to get very in depth on the subject of perspective*, but I thought I'd just share one tip for one-point perspective that I wished I'd been told a long time ago. It was mind blowing.

The hardest part (to me) of a one-point perspective drawing is getting the spacing right. If your objects are spaced evenly going out towards the horizon, then they're going to seem smaller and closer together as they go farther out. But how much do they reduce by? You could try math (which I have), but there's a much easier way.

Draw your point and the lines coming off of it and then add a line exactly between the two (this is important).

Then place your first layer. In this case, I'm doing the boards on a dock, but you can draw palm trees or tiles or whatever. These lines are simply to help space your objects out.

Here's the trick: take your ruler, line it up with the bottom right corner and run your line through where the center line bisects the top. Where the ruler meets the left line is where your next upper line goes.

And repeat!

Voila, perfectly spaced one point perspective. You may now continue and finish the drawing.

*If this sort of thing appeals to you, I would recommend the book "How To Draw: Drawing And Sketching Objects And Environments From Your Imagination" by Scott Robertson. It's very technical, so it may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's very helpful in this area.