Workshop - Understanding Perspective

If you are going to sketch and paint buildings and urban scenes, at some point a deeper understanding of how to draw perspective correctly is a must. Without learning how to render the perspective of buildings and the landscapes around them, a finished sketch can look wonky and unrealistic.

Although I had done some reading on the subject I jumped at the chance to take a new class by Stephanie Bower called “Understanding Perspective”. Over a total of nine classes held on Zoom, we learned directly from Stephanie about finding the vanishing point, horizontal line, one and two point perspective and in addition, how to draw domes, arches and all other sorts of building details. I truly loved this class with Stephanie and built confidence by going from guessing about perspective to having a toolkit for making it right.

A bonus in what I learned from Stephanie was how to effectively use a limited palette of colors. All of these sketches were done with three colors and one extra: Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre. The extra color is Quinacridone Burnt Orange. For shadows and shade, we learned how to mix various shades of “magic grey” which is made of Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna, and Permanent Alizarin Crimson. I have long admired Stephanie’s watercolor sketches and through the class I learned her laying technique of building up color. Truly a wonderful experience!

This archway has a one point perspective - located under the arch. The glow of sunlight on the right side wall and under the arch is from a drop of Quinacridone Burnt Orange on the right of the building

I loved doing this sketch which at first seems daunting because of all the details. Here, one of the two vanishing points is located in the scene on the lower left and the other is out of the frame way over to the right.