How to Draw a Street View in One Point Perspective?

To draw a street view in one-point perspective, you create the illusion of depth by having parallel lines recede to a single point on the horizon line.

Getting Started with One-Point Perspective

One-point perspective is ideal for views where you are looking straight down a road, hallway, or railway track. It's one of the simplest forms of linear perspective to learn.

Here’s a breakdown of the key elements and steps:

1. Horizon Line (HL): This horizontal line represents the viewer's eye level. Anything above the horizon line is seen from below, and anything below it is seen from above.
2. Vanishing Point (VP): This is a single point placed on the horizon line. It's the point where all parallel lines that are perpendicular to the viewer's line of sight appear to converge.

Drawing the Street Scene

Follow these steps to construct your street view:

• Step 1: Set Up Your Basic Structure

  • Draw a horizontal line across your paper for the Horizon Line (HL). The height of this line determines how high or low your viewpoint is.
  • Place a Vanishing Point (VP) directly on the HL. Usually, this point is centered for a straight-on street view.

• Step 2: Define the Street

  • From the Vanishing Point (VP), draw lines extending outward towards the bottom edge of your drawing surface. These lines will represent the edges of the street or road.
  • Referencing the video: As the video states, you can draw two more lines, one to the right and one to the left, from the vanishing point. These are more guidelines, so they can be softer. These lines might define the edges of sidewalks, buildings, or other receding elements.

• Step 3: Add Sidewalks and Buildings

  • Using the guidelines from the VP, draw horizontal lines perpendicular to these guidelines to indicate the width of the street or sidewalks at different points.
  • For buildings, the vertical edges will be parallel to the sides of your paper. The horizontal edges (like the tops and bottoms of windows or rooflines) that recede into the distance will angle towards the Vanishing Point (VP).

• Step 4: Incorporate Details

  • Add elements like windows, doors, streetlights, trees, or cars. Remember that as objects get closer to the Vanishing Point (VP), they should appear smaller.
  • The lines representing the depth of these objects should also converge towards the VP. For example, the tops and bottoms of a series of lampposts should align with lines drawn from the VP.

Key Principles

• Parallel lines converge: Any set of parallel lines that are not parallel to the picture plane (like the edges of the street, the tops/bottoms of buildings running down the street) will appear to meet at the Vanishing Point (VP).
• Horizontal and Vertical lines: Lines that are parallel to the picture plane (like the height of a building face on, or a window edge that is vertical or horizontal) will be drawn parallel to the edges of your paper.
• Size diminishes with distance: Objects appear smaller the further away they are from the viewer and the closer they are to the Vanishing Point (VP).

Example Elements in Perspective

Drawing a street view in one-point perspective requires patience and careful use of a ruler to ensure lines correctly converge at the single vanishing point.