The last important aspect you’ll want to know for grasping the basics is a thing called perspective, or proportions. I’ll show you a simple exercise too to go along with it in this post. Hooray exercises. They do you good. Which reminds me I need to go to the gym.
This post will be fairly short simply because there’s not a lot to talk about—not because I need to go to the gym.
Perspective is important, not only when painting or drawing something like a landscape, but also with portraits. It’s something you see every day and probably don’t realize it (unless you’ve taken my advice and been observing the world around you lately).
In this example, it’s not something you really need to practice over and over (unless you want to), but it is important to understand.You’ll end up “practicing” it anyway.
Basically, the closer an object is to you the bigger it will be and the further away an object is, the smaller it will be.
There’s not much to say on this topic so I’ll jump right in to the example. We’re going to be drawing a “one point perspective”. You’ll need a pencil or pen, a ruler, and some paper. (Why this picture uploaded sideways on here I don’t know…)
Start by drawing a dot in the center of the paper (I drew mine kind of large) called the “vanishing point”, and then draw angled lines that intersect at that dot:
Note: I forgot to add in the “horizon line” (which is exactly what it sounds like). You’ll want to draw a straight line across the paper using your ruler after drawing the dot and THEN moving on to the next step.
Like this:
Now draw the lines:
The finished product should look like this (just pretend I drew the horizon line).
Note: They can be at any angle, I just drew mine like this.
Then draw lines perpendicular to the lines you just drew, like this:
After that, you simply mirror the bottom lines on the top. It should look like a big bow. Don’t worry about having them the exact same angle, or if it’s crooked or something. Precision isn’t important right now.
Now here comes the fun part, you can add any details you’d like. Just remember that any object closest to you will be the largest, and the further away it is, the smaller it will be. In my case, I just drew lines which get farther apart the closer they are to you (the viewer). You can draw anything you’d like.
Here’s another example (the perspective isn’t quite so distant):
This is the best way I can explain it. If you take the time to observe whatever it is you’re drawing or painting, you’ll automatically know this. It’s probably one of the simplest things to learn when you’re a novice. This was a fun doodle to draw when I was a kid, because I could make just about anything with it. Rooms, streets, tunnels, etc. Just have fun with it!
Want some homework? Do research on some perspective drawings other people have done. Try a Google search, you’ll find some pretty nifty sketches.
Before I end this post I’d like to let you know that I’ve kept this kind of watered down because I want you to be able to envision it first. If you’d like a more detailed lesson on this, or anything else, just let me know in the comments!