Learning objectives
■ Understand one and two-point perspective
■ Add figures to your drawings
I've mentioned perspective several times in this series, and now I'd like to look at the principles involved, since they play a major part in the organisation of most of my subjects, and are fundamental to making a successful sketch. For us as artists, perspective means creating the illusion of three dimensions, while we work in two dimensions. I am concerned here primarily with linear perspective – achieving that effect through the organised placement of lines.
I'll begin with a diagram familiar to most, but don't assume this is all old hat; cracks already begin to appear in people's understanding at this first stage. Figure 1 (above left) demonstrates four important rules:
Rule 1 Lines, provided they are horizontal and lie in the same direction as the viewer's view, appear to converge if extended at a single point on the horizon, which is at the viewer's eye level, called the vanishing point (VP). This includes the railway lines, the canopy of the station facing the track, and the imaginary line joining the top of each of the telephone posts, provided they are on level ground. It does not apply to the blue shape on the ground
Rectilinear shapes (like the blue shape at the track-side), lying in different directions
