Craig Attebery - The Complete Guide to Perspective Drawing: From One-Point to Six-Point

How important is it to learn linear perspective ? Computers can calculate perspective angles and create a drawing for us, so what need is there to learn it traditionally?

To begin with, pencils and paper are not going away soon. The freedom and spontaneity of mark-making, the tactile quality of a writing surface and drawing instrument, and the immediacy and convenience of the human touch will forever remain seductive. The sensuality of the hand persists and will survive as a valuable aid to visual communication, as will the need to place your ideas accurately on paper. Furthermore, knowledge is empowering. As a professional, understanding the foundations of drawing, how we process images, and how we interpret what we see are principal skills. This knowledge transfers directly to your drawings, giving them an air of confidence. If you understand the geometry of lines you have a powerful tool to create believable images.

You can avoid learning perspectivebut only for a while. Those pesky drawing problems will continue to surface: the misguided lines, the trapezoidal buildings, the awkward ellipses, the floating figures, the shapes that, well, just look off. The problems seem endless. You realize it is time to end your procrastination. It is time to learn perspective. This realization is typically accompanied by a heavy sigh, for learning perspective can be overwhelming. Take a deep breath. Give yourself time to let the material sink in. It takes practice. It also takes an abnormal amount of left-brain thinking; at least, more than most artists like to do. Approach the material one problem at a time, from the simple to the complex, step by step. Have a solid understanding of the basics before you progress to the advanced.

I have tried to strike a balance between showing and explaining, so the descriptions and the images work together. Some readers connect with written descriptions, others (like me) connect with images. Both are needed to some extent. Describing the diagrams in prose is often a difficult task. I have tried to avoid describing the obvious; unnecessary wordiness attributes to confusion and tedium. In some cases, the reader may not need the descriptions at allthe drawings may tell the story.

Start at the beginning of this book, as the information builds on previous chapters. Without the foundations supplied in the earlier sections, the rest of the book may be perplexing. There are step-by-step guides for each drawing. The instructional illustrations use basic geometric shapes as placeholders for real world objects. Depending on its proportion and scale, a cuboid can represent a building, a car, or a person. All objects can be reduced to simple geometric forms. You may wish to use colored pencils to color-code the procedures. Practice by using the worksheets (available as a download from the Routledge website). As you advance through the book it may be helpful to review previous sections. This will ensure you dont forget what you have learned. Reviewing the material also assists in gaining a deeper understanding of the procedures. Keep in mind that there are many solutions to any given problem. There is no one correct procedure. There is, however, only one correct answer, one correct resultjust different ways to achieve it.

After becoming well-versed in perspective theory, you will be able to find various solutions to any given problem. These solutions become evident when you understand the whys as well as the hows. I want this book to illustrate how to draw accurately, but also to explain why the procedures work the way they do. I have attempted to create a book for beginners and for the advanced. I want to tackle the difficult problems as well as the basic problems, to create (as much as possible) a complete perspective book. That being said, it is impossible to include solutions to every scenario. The purpose of this book is to give you the information needed to extrapolate from the given samples, and to find a resolution to specific problems not addressed here. Remember: with knowledge, there is nothing too difficult to draw.

Dividing a length into a given number of spaces can be done with a ruler and a little math. A better method involves using a ruler and a triangle. It is fast, accurate, and no calculator is needed (). This technique only works on lines parallel with the picture plane. It does not work on lines that are foreshortened. It is an excellent tool to plot evenly spaced segments.