2 Point Perspective City Drawing

1. What is two point perspective?
Two point perspective is another method of drawing a realistic 3D object. Just like the one point perspective method, it requires "vanishing point" for the method to work. However, two point perspective require two vanishing points. This is how the next dimension of the illustration is built.

2. Why is it different from one point perspective?
Two point perspective is a much more useful drawing system, than the simple one point perspective. Two point perspective give the object three dimensions, while one point perspective can only give two. This makes a two point perspective illustration look more natural.

3. How do we draw a two point perspective object?
1.) Draw a horizon line, and put two vanishing points at each end.
2.) Then, draw a vertical line underneath the horizon line.
3.) Then, draw a straight line from the top of the vertical line, to each vanishing point.
4.) Then, draw another straight line from the bottom of the vertical line to each vanishing point.
5.) Then, draw two more vertical lines, each in between the diagonal lines that run from the first vertical line to the vanishing point.
6.) Then, draw another line from the new vertical line to each vanishing point.
7.) Then, bold the shape in the middle, so that the "box" shows up.

4. Examples of two point perspective:

One of the hardest processes for me in making an artwork is planning. It has always been difficult for me to come up with a creative and original design. From my previous projects, I learned that the first ideas that come up to your mind first are always unoriginal, but the forth to fifth ones are most likely to be creative.

I have done my brain-storming in my draft book, though these are all my ideas put in a list:

Fish tank,
Museum,
Grand Canyon,
Time Square Corner,
Candles on a Birthday cake.

After considering each of my ideas, I have decided on the idea "Time Square Corner" for my final artwork. This is because I think the city lights of Time Square, New York, will be able to brighten up my painting and make it attractive. Besides, personally I have not yet painted something like it before. My previous paintings are always about nature and environments, the first name tag I did back in Grade 6 was an illustration of tigers in the forrest, and the second name tag for the unit One Point Perspective in Grade 7 was a painting of the desert. So I thought it would be challenging and fun to paint my third name tag with a completely different theme.

First Draft

This was the very first draft of my artwork. By then, I still did not fully understand the concept of two point perspective, so I had made some mistakes on my name sign. Fortunately, I was able to fix that mistake by the useful feedbacks from my friends: Jun and Ploy.

Jun: Each letter should be 3D, and consider the depth of each character. If the hole is 3 cm. and the actual letter is 2 cm., it wouldn't make sense. Hope you know what I mean.

Ploy: It's original! The idea is already good. Just make sure to follow the vanishing point pattern, then it would be great.

Second Draft

This was my second and last draft of my artwork. After I had practiced drawing two point perspective, I understood its concepts better and did not make any mistakes in this second draft. I added some more details in this draft, such as the banners and the lamp. So after our teacher, Mr. Patrick, checked it and said it was okay, I was ready to start on my final product.

Create

"Time Square Corner"

Evaluate

I have learnt a lot from this project. I have now clearly understood the concepts of two point perspective. At first, this topic seemed very confusing and complicated to me. But now, I can easily draw a two point perspective building, by using just one horizontal line, one vertical line, two diagonal lines, and two vanishing points. Besides the method to create two point perspective, I have also learnt what kind of picture requires two point perspective, through brain-storming and practice drawing lots of ideas. This skill is very useful for me in the future, because two point perspectives are actually found more often than we thought–and the other thing I learnt is that it is an easy skill, but if you don't do it correctly, the whole image will look very fake and strange. Overall, I can tell that I have learnt some very useful and important skills over the past weeks.

What I had done well in this project was the painting process. I found that somehow the my painting process of this artwork went by very smoothly without any problems. This is because I have painted a lot of artworks before, so I could apply many techniques I have learnt from those projects to use with this one. Such as painting the background before the building, have a paper to keep tracks of the color I used so that I could mix the same color again in the next classes, and using complementary tone for the opposite colors of the city lights. However, the process that was most challenging for me was drafting. It took me a lot of time to come up with an idea, but after I came up with this idea of painting the Time Square, it turned out to be very hard to sketch. I had to combine various images of Time Square together, in order to come up with a draft sketch. It was pretty challenging, and I was very proud after I accomplished this process.

When comparing my artwork with my friends', I saw both negative and positive differences between my artwork and theirs. One negative difference is that some of my friends' ideas were more creative and original. No, I did not copy the idea of New York's Time Square from someone else, but I saw lots of two point perspective paintings that have buildings. In the other hand, one positive difference I saw is that my painting is more neatly painted and has more little details. This is because I am already an accurate painter, and I personally like to pay attention on these little details in a painting.

These are two examples of my friends' artworks. I have chosen these two pieces because they clearly represent the negative and positive differences I mentioned above:

By: Jun G.8a

By: Yeso G.8a

If I had a chance to paint my painting again, I will improve by adding people onto the painting. These people won't have to be in detail, they can just be painted in black color, like shadows, because they are not the prominent point of the painting. But having a few people in the painting will make the picture look more alive. Now the painting shows a very quiet corner of the Time Square, which gives a feeling of loneliness. But if there are people in the picture, the painting would give a total different feeling, it would represent the feeling of chaos and fun, which is what I intention at the first place.