Three Perspective Mistakes That Will Haunt You For Life

Introduction To Perspective

Let’s talk about the top three mistakes all beginners make when it comes to understanding perspective.

To be perfectly honest, you have probably been making these mistakes for a while, but no worries after reading this article you will have everything you need to stop yourself from this negative streak of mistakes.

Just this minimum change in perception will better you drawing skills and yeah the good news is that it takes MINIMUM EFFORT on your behalf.

A bit of perspective… on perspective

Perspective is by far the most important skill you got in your freehand architecture drawing toolbox.

How it all works is you first need to get the basics right and then you start drawing more and more complex things.

I’m stressing this out right from the beginning because I’ve noticed most of my students are really enthusiastic about learning drawing and want to just skip the basics altogether so they may get to the interesting parts of the drawing.

I wouldn’t recommend you do that: chances are you will learn something the wrong way and then have to unlearn it  (remember, unlearning is twice as complicated as learning – so you’re best off picking it up right from the first time round!).

Get your first box perspectives right and your drawing skills just add up…

In a short amount of time, you will be drawing cool things such as buildings or abstract volumetric compositions, or anything else you would see in an architecture magazine.

Alright?

That’s a fact.

So although drawing has its weird, counter-intuitive, or subjective parts, understanding perspective is a fairly straightforward skill to get. Imagine it like an on/off switch – you either get it or you don’t and there is no middle ground.

Following that rule of thumb, even the smallest perspective mistake compromises your whole work -that’s good news, right?

Obviously, we can choose to be proactive about it, so now let’s talk about the mistakes you’re probably making right now and probably aren’t aware of.

These mistakes limited your drawing abilities so far, so you’re best off doing that bit of introspection.

Activate that inner radar that detects either of the three and let’s unwire them, one by one. I think you’ll find out that it gets a lot easier after you’re done with each of them!

Mistake #1 Not respecting the perspective points rule, so your drawings end up not making sense

The first mistake I’ve noticed all my beginner students do is not following construction points properly, so their drawings are completely off.

The way to correct this is to name both perspective points – I usually go for P1 (perspective point one) and P2 (perspective point two).

This way you will get in the habit of following perspective points and in a short time ( a minimum of five complete drawings) it will become a habit so you won’t need to think about it.

Mistake #2 Not constructing your perspectives

This is the  BIG one, it will take a bit more effort on your behalf to get past this as you need to consciously remind yourself to always construct all elements of a drawing.

Over the years I’ve noticed all my students were going through a stage where they want to skip fully constructing every perspective.

That is a really bad idea as a correct line drawing is what makes the final drawing piece look good.

You will encounter the same temptation of not following through with constructing your perspectives – so don’t give in!

Construct every perspective, every time although at this moment you are probably questioning yourself on what’s the point of doing it.

Trust me, this makes the difference between the masters and the amateurs!

Again, it will soon become a habit so you won’t need to worry about it…