How to Draw in Two Point Perspective : Drawing Guide

Hi. My name is Shawn Hawkins and I am going to teach you guys about two point perspective today. In my last tutorial we were talking about 1-point perspective and now we are going to talk about two point perspective. And then, the next tutorial will be about 3 point perspective…so stick around. You will notice that 2 point perspective adds a lot of depth and 3-dimensionality to your drawings. Once you learn 2-point perspective, there is no going back to drawing flat boring drawings. Have fun and learn a lot!

Here are More Perspective Drawing Tutorials

How to Draw in Two Point Perspective : Drawing Guide

Step 1

With 2 point perspective, we first draw a picture plane (the rectangle that you see above).

Step 2

Draw a horizon line. You should draw 2 vanishing points. I like to make them far apart so the scene seems more natural.

Step 3a

Draw a vertical line anywhere around where I drew mine. It is easier to start with one vertical line…you will see why.

Step 3b

Then start drawing lines that lead back to the vanishing points.

Step 4

So now, we have the freedom to place the next vertical lines wherever we want to. So you will see we placed two vertical

lines…do the same thing.

Step 5

– Now what we do is draw a line from the left rectangle to the right vanishing point(Highlighted in green).

– And draw a line from the right rectangle to the left vanishing point (Highlighted in red).

So you have now created a very 3-dimensional looking box without doing anything very complicated at all. Believe it or not, you just used 2 point perspective.

In 2 point perspective…certain set of lines go in one direction and another set of lines go in the other direction…and that is what you just did.

Step 6

Erase the lines that you don’t need, so that you just have the 3-dimensional box, the picture plane, and the horizon line left, as seen above!

2nd box

Step 1

So you want to draw the picture plane again. Then draw a horizon line and draw vanishing points so that they are far apart from each other.

Step 2

Now I’m going to show you what 2 point perspective looks like with a grid. In other words, if there was a grid of 2-point perspective lines, this is what it would look like. This will help you see why certain lines go in certain directions.

Step 3

This is a quick perspective grid, you can see how the space recedes back. Not the cleanest…but this is what it looks like. This is what a tiled floor would look like in 2 point perspective.

Difference you will see between 1 and 2 point perspective

What happens in 2 point perspective is that the box is at an angle…(unlike in one point perspective where the box is parallel to the picture plane)…as seen in this picture above.

The picture plane in 2 point perspective is NOT parallel any more.So there are a few lines that are only vertical. We turned the box a bit, so the 3 lines are the only lines that are going to be verticals. The angles are are going to be diagonal as they recede back to the vanishing points. Its pretty simple. The difference between 1 and 2 point perspective is a bit of a rotation of the box. 2 point perspective helps create depth in your drawings…as you can see by the above example.

Step 4

Now draw a vertical line above the horizon line (I highlighted it in red).

Then draw lines back to the vanishing points (I highlighted it in green).

Step 5

Now draw 2 more vertical lines (I highlighted it in green).

Then draw lines back to the vanishing points, from the bottom of every line. (I highlighted it in red).

Step 6

Then just erase any lines that you don’t need and shade in the bottom of the box (where not light is able to hit it).

I hope that this tutorial helped you…I will post part 2 shortly…where we will continue with some of the concepts of 2 point perspective and dive into 3 point perspective as well!

Part 1 of Perspective Drawing Series (1 Point Perspective)

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