Drawing Perspective: How to See It and How to Apply It

by Matthew Brehm

Here's a hands-on guide to perspective that's for anyone who wants to draw or paint--in any genre or medium. It's partly about learning how to draw a set of straight lines that meet at a point, but it's not filled with lots of dull, dry theory (although it does explain how it all works). Instead, it gives you tons of fun, practical exercises, and encourages you to play with them, so that learning how to draw in perspective is effortless and easy. Put your observational skills to the test with: Image Quizzes: take a pen and draw in all the vanishing points onto the book itselfPerspective Chambers: draw objects onto an existing scene, keeping it all in the right perspective--sort of like 3D doodlingUnique exercises with more than 100 vanishing points to figure outBy the time you've completed this book, you will have a keen understanding of how perspective really works. Plus, you'll learn how to look at the world around you, see what's really there, and spot where those invisible straight lines may be located. It will become like a sixth sense to you--one that will add depth and meaning to all of your artistic pursuits.

Genres: Art, Drawing, Nonfiction, Reference, How To

144 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2015

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I mentioned in some reviews for art supplies on Amazon lately, I've been trying to get back into drawing and cartooning after not doing much other than doodling during meetings for the past twenty years. I've taken art classes in the past but most of them were either time wasters or a learn by doing affair. I remember exactly one class period about perspective. Anyway, this book was highly recommended. Like writing, art is a "figure out what works for you and do that" kind of endeavor but there are still guidelines you should follow.

Instructional books are usually dry as hell. This book peps up what could be a yawn inducing subject. It's still a little on the dry side but that can't be avoided when you're talking about converging lines and such.

I found the book to be fairly engaging and the various kinds of perspective were explained in a way that easily made sense. Some of it took a little longer to wrap my head around than others but, conceptually, I think I had a grip on things by the end. Applying the knowledge will be a different matter. Luckily, there's a workbook section at the end if you want to practice. I plan on busting out one of my sketchbooks and experimenting when I finally get enough free time to do so.

Curvilinear perspective is some trippy ass shit, by the way. Since I primarily draw cartoony stuff, I doubt I'll use it, but the sections on one, two, and multiple vanishing points will be helpful. I like how the author acknowledges that the guidelines he lays out are just guidelines. While I was reading the book, I had to think that Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko were winging things 90% of the time.

I found Drawing Perspective to be a very useful resource for how to incorporate perspective into drawings. I look forward to referring back to it in the future. Four out of five stars.

[Kalin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book randomly the other day at Indigo and am so glad that I did, because the information in it is pure gold.

Where other books have you drawing boxes in perspective then leave you stuck at what to do with more complicated subjects, this book really helps you to see, understand and apply perspective to much more complicated architectural forms. It gives many photographic examples, along with artistic renderings of those photographs, so that you can really begin to see and break down the construction of your drawings.

It also emphasizes the fact that your drawings don't need to be extremely accurate and tight, which is something I was struggling with while trying to use a ruler to form all of my lines. It also encourages you to estimate convergence of lines that have vanishing points off of the page.

The section that sets this book apart from every other perspective book is that it actually covers multi-point perspective in detail. This was a concept that I had difficulty understanding initially because other books only covered 1, 2 and 3 point perspective, which left me confused as to what to do when trying to draw objects with angles that didn't converge at those points.

I also found the section on curvilinear perspective to be really interesting. This is another perspective that is not commonly discussed in other books. Hopefully one day I will be good enough to try and attempt it.

The only things that I found lacking here were that it didn't go into much of any technical detail about crucial construction topics, such as constructing ellipses in perspective, the importance of dividing areas, creating inclined planes, describing the cone of vision, horizon and station point and understanding object distortion. That's why I think this book is best paired with a more technical book for understanding those topics. However, since I already had knowledge of those topics from other books, I really didn't mind.

Another neat thing about this book is that it comes with downloadable perspective grids to use and has a cool workbook section in the back.

[Hannah]

study at home w1

[Mik · Rating 5 out of 5]

seriously helpful. I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to learn perspective--this book is super straightforward and a great reference.

[Laura Bowman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have found this book to explain the many types of perspective in an understandable fashion. I checked it out from the library and liked it so much that I bought it for a reference.