Drawing in Linear Perspective

Linear Perspective

The pictures below are a tiny sampling of what you can do with perspective drawing. This is an elementary introduction and if you find that you want to learn more about perspective then I urge you to seek a book that teaches it in detail.

To do this linear/technical perspective you will need:

large drawing surface
paper and drafting tape (to tape the paper to the drawing surface)
18" straight edge, a yard stick might do as long as it is straight
pencils, erasers

	Illustration 1 shows the horizon line and the vanishing point. The horizon line is typically eye-level. Drawing See Animation
	This picture is an example of how to space vertical objects such as posts, poles,... Study the picture to figure out how it is done. See Animation MORE - Models- The DML
	Land is almost never flat. After drawing your poles, draw in the land. Raise or lower your poles to meet the land.
	This is 2 point perspective. Study the drawing and then try to draw a box.
	This drawing of a building demonstrates a couple of things. To find the center of a box draw an x in the box, corner to corner. Where the lines meet in the center of the x is the center of the box. To make the roof slopes of the building correct, a third perspective point is added above the right perspective point.

That is all for this introduction to perspective. Study the drawings and try to draw using perspective. If you would like to see my drawings that I did when I was in school, visit this page: Art 1 Drawings

Perspective books:
I have all of the books linked below and my ungiven opinion varies on each of the books.
(Links last checked August 2, 2011)

Elementary: Lessons in Perspective Drawing published by Rod and Staff
Links: Lessons in Perspective Drawing or Lessons in Perspective Drawing (links go to same book)

7th - High School: Lifepacs Elective Art Unit 4 (You do not need the teacher's book for this one course in my opinion)

Advanced: The Art of Teaching Art by D. Rockman. Heads-up- This is an art book, so of course there are nudes in it and a few deserve to be covered. This can be accomplished with small post-it notes. Covering the nudes does not hamper the quality of the book. You may preview the book at books.google.com and at amazon.com. This book is useful for teaching upper level art classes.
Also check your library and the internet for resources.

Perspective for those who want to draw comics - Vanishing Point: Perspective for Comics from the Ground Up

Wikipedia page on graphical perspective: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_(graphical)