Hi and welcome back to the second video in this lesson series on how to draw perspective.

Just in case you missed the previous lesson, be sure to click the link below to watch it now:

Perspective Lesson 1 – Introduction To Perspective Drawing

So in today’s lesson, we are going to break down all the basic component of a perspective drawing so you can have a really comprehensive view of the whole picture and really know how everything fits together.

So here are all the elements of a perspective drawing that you need to know about:

(Note: Below are a brief summary of the definitions of all the perspective elements. For a more detail explanation, please refer to the video above.)

The Observer

Every perspective drawing or picture is seen from the point of view of the observer. The observer is like the main character and we are essentially see the scene through his/her eyes.

The Cone of Vision

The cone of vision is defined as the scope of what the observer can see clearly when looking into a scene.

The cone of vision is important because it determines what is going to be in our perspective drawing.

The Eye Level / Horizon Line

The eye level is quite simply the height of the observer’s eyes from the ground. If the observer’s eyes are 6 feet off the ground, then the eye level will be at 6 feet.

The eye level is also one and the same as the horizon line in a perspective drawing.

Some artist like the define the horizon line as the line where the sky meets the ground. This is a true and useful definition for outdoor landscape drawings where that line is clearly visible.

But it is not a useful definition for scenes indoor where the sky and the ground are covered up.

Therefore, it is much better to remember that the horizon line is always the same as the eye level of the observer.

The Picture Plane

The picture plane can be though of as your drawing paper itself. It takes in all the 3D images in the scene and transform it into a 2D drawing.

Vanishing Points

Vanishing points are created because of the fact that as things move further away from our eyes, they appear smaller.

Therefore, in a perspective drawing, as things recede away from the observer, they get smaller and smaller until they appear to disappear (or vanish) into a vanishing point.

Vanishing points are a huge component of perspective drawing because they help artist to determine how to draw all the straight lines in the drawing.

We will talk more about vanishing points in future lessons.

So that’s basically all the elements of a perspective drawing. I hope that wasn’t to confusion.

In tomorrow’s video, we are going to dive into the different types of perspective and I’ll explain just how one point perspective works.

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So that’s it for today’s perspective lesson.

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Thank you for visiting and I’ll see you tomorrow!