In our first lesson on perspective drawing, Perspective Drawing for Beginners | Bigger and Smaller, we learned a simple lesson that makes perspective drawing easy:

If it's close, it's bigger. If it's far away, it's smaller.

In this lesson we will learn about one-point perspective. The second basic idea that you will need to know about perspective drawing is:

If things are far away enough, they seem to disappear.

The point at which they disappear is called a vanishing point.

Think about what you would see if you were standing on a highway. One that's very straight with no cars. The vanishing point is place where the highway disappears in the distance.

Just about every object at school and at home has at least one vanishing point. If you want to show an accurate perspective of the object you are drawing, you will need to keep its vanishing point in mind. In the beginning in will be helpful to draw vanishing point guide lines. Once you have some experience drawing objects in perspective, you can use your imagination to draw the lines that reach to the vanishing point.

Let's draw a big wooden crate.

Step 1
Begin by drawing a large square on your paper with a ruler.

Step 2
Make a small dot above the square that will represent the vanishing point. Then draw four lines that will be your guide lines. Remember to draw these lines lightly, because you will erase them later.

Step 3
Add the lines for the sides and back edge of the crate. When you add the line for the back edge of the crate, make it a perfectly horizontal line. Every line in this drawing will always be perfectly horizontal unless it is following a vanishing point guide line.

Step 4
Add the inside edges of the crate's framing planks. Use your ruler every time for best results.

Step 5
The nails and the lines that divide each plank of wood and are all we have left to add. If you would like to be a little creative, try adding a few knot holes and wood grain on your own!

Let's try another lesson: Lesson 3: Two-Point Perspective

For Teachers
This lesson is one of three lessons designed to introduce perspective drawing to elementary art students. The first lesson begins with bigger/smaller aspect of objects when we consider them in perspective. The next two lessons will introduce one-point and two-point perspective.