One-Point Perspective

421K
Mark as Completed
Course In Progress

One-Point Perspective

421K
Mark as Completed
Course In Progress
Stan Prokopenko
We're on to drawing boxes! We'll start with the basics of one-point perspective, covering the XYZ axes, horizon line, and vanishing points. I'll show you a demo drawing a scene filled with boxes and explain the limitations of one-point perspective.
Newest
southernwhales
My friend you just gave me an epiphany
@cbmaster3000
Hi. I've been drawing for about a year now and i'm trying to learn perspective. This course was very helpful. I have bad anxiety and i wish to be a good artist and learn the right way and get good fast. I think drawing boxes is a nice and simple project for beginners like me. Thank you proko! Your videos have been very helpful. I decided to learn one point perspective first. I sure hope the others won't be too hard. Thank you so much for the wonderful videos and courses. I sure hope i can become a good artist and a good animator one day. Thanks so much!
Sean H
6mo
Coming back after watching the explanation of the level 2 project: If I'm not mistaken, rotating a box in one-point perspective along the z-axis (the depth) doesn't change the position of the vanishing point or create new ones. This is because each edge along z will change position in the xy plane but they'll still be pointing in the same direction. The z axis of the object and thus the direction of convergence is unchanged. In less mathy terms, as long as every object (not necessarily a box) in a scene is directly facing us, the viewer, then there will only be one vanishing point regardless of the angle(s) of that front face. This is what let's us draw more complicated forms like arcade cabinets in one-point perspective with all their slanted planes. ...This can get confusing thinking about for too long but I figured I'd leave a comment since others might think about it as well. I think it's worth noting since it means you can get more out of one-point perspective than just a bunch of boxes sitting on the ground!
Devon D. Yeider
I decided to apply this video to a personal drawing instead of only drawing boxes which isn't as fun. I also watched David Finich's how to draw in 1pt perspective (at least the beginning) and intro to perspective I gave myself an hour so I can work on other lessons and projects. If you have any thoughts or feedback (*cough* *cough* @Gannon Beck *cough*) id love to hear it! I certainly got confused and I think I made the ground too low? Idk but better done than perfect!
Devon D. Yeider
Going back through this section of the course. I shall not fear perspective!
Gannon Beck
Nothing to fear. As I've heard C.F. Payne say, "The only thing taking a risk is the paper."
Lisanne
11mo
Humbling to see how my lines turn out. Nevertheless a fun way to practice lines in a more complex way than just 'drawing straight lines'. Adding this to the warm up mix!
Anna Sch
8mo
This is my attempt. With and without guide lines. I can see that my boxes are a bit wobbly and uneven. Is there anything else i should look for next time?
Carlos Javier Roo Soto
Any advice to improve my line quality, I haven't practice straight lines in a while. How is the perspective working so far.
Devon D. Yeider
Rewatch the line quality section of the drawing basics course as well as find masters of line and try and copy exactly what they do. Hope that helps!
Yonatan Tlhun
its look very good
Ralph
1yr
may I ask why you use moving along the y axis but rotating around the X axis as examples in the first minute? I know they are just examples, but given how much confusion exists around perspective and how much I struggled with it myself, wouldn't it be better to first show movement along the three axis to indicate how the foreshortening changes and THEN show that you can also rotate things around any axis? Otherwise that can already start out the video with some confusion on why the "change" on the Y axis is so different from the X axis. Maybe I am overthinking it, but given that it is the very fist example for the subject, maybe that would be helpful? Just my 2 cents. I doubt it will derail someones art career to leave it as it is.
Margaret Langston
1-pt perspective boxes. Thank you for the very hands-on approach. I always get frozen with perspective exercises, trying to make everything perfect. I think your message is that getting through the process is important, and there's always time to perfect execution as we go along. Did I understand correctly?
Jesse W.
1yr
Sounds right to me. Keep practicing the line confidence and mark quality exercises from earlier and slowly your vanishing point guidelines and boxes will look better and more confident, but it doesn't need to be a blocker before getting into drawing this stuff. Improvement takes time and practice.
sara keyes
1yr
@avey888
1yr
STAN!!! You're so FREAKIN' Funny!!!I love when you started sweating then it escalated!!!🤣🤣🤣 "...That's why we had that exercise..." Ugh. Sometimes we're so hard on ourselves. Even when no one is around. Hahaa! Thanks for being in the drawing "trenches" with us! Thank you for all the wisdom and knowledge and joy of art and humanity you're sharing with the world.
@russelljones
Great video - just to help everyone a good reference for perspective drawings is R Fraser Reekie's book Draughtmanship - its a very old book but good and as am architect ( drawing perspectives for years) i recommend it. Love all your videos!
Dermot
1yr
I have a basic grasp of one, two and three point perspective. It's good to start from the beginning again. Thanks, great video and explanation. When you mention that as perspective gets more complicated there can be many vanishing points, that's where have difficulty and keeping track or even working out all of the vanishing lines in a scene without creating a mass / mess of lines. I'm looking forward to all the perspective lessons.
@bonnieblue
1 point perspective. Gotta get back to connect the dots warm ups.
Alexandra Mayorova
I'm not new to drawing, I even work. But the perspective is very difficult for me. It took me years to realize that 1,2 points are conditional, and 99% of the time we see the world in 3 points.  It took me a few more years to realize that this should be at the subconscious level. I have to draw millions of boxes so I don't have to think. And here I am again. It will never be enough. And I have to find the strength not to reflect.
Stan Prokopenko
Ya perspective is hard. I'll try to explain things as best as I can and give you projects that will force you to work through the problems. It won't be easy. You'll run into challenges and you'll make mistakes. But remember, they're just drawings that you can throw away and try again.
Jarrett van den Bergh
You can do it! Sometimes it only takes a small revelation to make all the practice finally click. You may have already done this, but for anyone who hasn't heard of it, I found the 250 box challenge on drawabox to be enlightening for my perspective skills!
Juice
1yr
This might be too advanced and this is just a basic excersice for 1 point perspective. But I have some questions. Using 1 point perspective for an object that shows more than 2 planes (front and above or from below) is just something theorietical? Because When you see something from slightest angel it will be a second varnishing point? In the renaissance they used 1 point perspective even When they showed more sides because they hadnt learned other kinds of perspective yet. (Did you teach me that? :D ) In one of your courses I don’t remember wich you said if you see the frontplane undistorted with 90 degrees angles a perfect square you can’t see the side plane. Its an impossible box. So the boxes towards the sides in this practice are impossible boxes? Just theoretical?
Stan Prokopenko
Perspective is an invention to create the illusion of what we see. 1-point perspective is a very simplified version of that, but it's not exactly what we see. Even 3-point perspective isn't exactly what we see. Reality is closer to fisheye, curvilinear, because our eyes are round. I'm sure you've seen those perspective drawings where all the lines are curving a bit. We're starting with 1-point because it's simple and we need simple right now to just get familiar with converging edges to a point.
@simonchao
1yr
Perspective is all about how the 3D world is projected onto a 2D plane. Yes, 1,2 or 3 point perspective don't represent exactly the way our eyes see mostly because our eyes don't image linearly. However, if a perfect camera does exist, it can definitely follow the behavior of a 1 point perspective. You can point the camera perpendicular to the front plane (but set the box aside) and still be able to see the side plane.
Jarrett van den Bergh
I'm a student also, but I think you are right. In reality, every box will have multiple vanishing points, because they each have 3 sets of parallel lines. Even if there existed lines that were perfectly horizontal or vertical (like in 1-point perspective), they would begin to look curved if they stretched into infinity. This is because our eyes are curved and so produce a slight fisheye (or curvilinear) effect. However in practice, often the tilt is so negligible that it is looks pretty much like 1 point perspective. So it becomes useful to draw things this way.
Full course
You will be given unexpiring access to watch the videos online .
View course details
Give a gift
Give a gift card for art students to use on anything in the Proko store.
Or gift this course:
About instructor
Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
Help!
Browse the FAQs or our more detailed Documentation. If you still need help or to contact us for any reason, drop us a line and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!