Perspectives in Landscape Painting
One of our students Kathy wrote us email asking for some help regarding perspectives. Kathy writes:
HiI have question about perspective in the drawing. I am trying to learn how to draw and have been looking at different drawings to work out the perspective. I think this drawing is two point perspective? Is that correct? Can you advise where I would find the vanishing lines in this drawing? I can't seem to work it out, not just with this drawing which is lovely but with other artists drawings that I look at. When I do try to draw in perspective I feel like the drawings look too technical (like architectural drawings) and this one doesn't so am wondering what the secret is.RegardsKathy
In a lot of landscape drawing, perspective is an important consideration. Very often there can be more than two point perspectives (see an example of one of our watercolour pictures below):
It can depend on the complexity of the subject material. However while it’s imporant to pay heed to perspectives, I agree that this can result in a more technical type drawing.To get over this an artist must employ artistic license and often perspectives can be changed to enhance the artistic quality of the picture.
What is a Vanishing Point?
A vanishing point is the point on the horizon where two parallel lines meet. For example in this sketch below you can see where the objects in the image get smaller as they get further away towards the vanishing point.
They are used to create a 3d effect in your landscape work. We hope that helps and is something to think about when doing your own landscape drawing.