Types of perspective

The eye being a sphere, it comprehends the lines of the horizon and all verticals as curves. You have to allow for this when you draw by not making your perspective too wide, otherwise distortion occurs.

One-point Perspective

The most simple and obvious type of perspective is one point perspective, where all the lines of the landscape will appear to diminish to a single point right in front of your view on the far horizon. You only get this sort of perspective view when the objects between you and the horizon are fairly uniformly distributed and any buildings are not too obvious.

Two-point Perspective

Where there is sufficient height and solidity in near object (such as houses) to need two vanishing points at the far ends of the horizon line, two-point perspective you can calculate the three dimensional effect of structures to give your picture convincing solidity and depth. Mostly the vanishing points will be too far out your horizon line to enable you to plot the converging lines precisely with a ruler. However, if you practise drawing blocks of buildings using two vanishing points you will soon be able to estimate the converging lines correctly.

Three-point Perspective

When you come to draw buildings that have both extensive width and height, you have to employ three- point perspective. The two vanishing points on the horizon are joined by a third which is fixed above the higher buildings to help create the illusion of very tall architecture. Notice in this example how the lines from the base of the building gently converge to a point high in the sky. Once again, you have to gauge the rate of convergence in order to make the height of the building appear even more dramatic. When this is overdone you can end up with a drawing that looks like something out of a comic book.

(the text from » The ultimate book of drawing..» by Barrington Barber)