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One-point perspective drawing

Learn how artists use a horizon line and one vanishing point to make a flat page look like a road or street going far away.

Let us begin

The big idea

Stand on a long straight road and look ahead. The road looks narrow far away and wide near you, even though it has the same width everywhere. Artists use one-point perspective to draw this on flat paper.

The horizon line is the line where the sky and the ground seem to meet. It is at the level of your eyes. In a drawing we draw it as a straight line across the page.

The vanishing point is a dot on the horizon line. Lines that go away from us, such as the edges of a road or railway lines, seem to meet there. In real life these lines stay the same distance apart; they only look as if they meet.

The straight guide lines that run to the vanishing point are called orthogonal lines, or receding lines. We use them to draw roads, buildings, rooms and boxes.

In one-point perspective the faces of an object that point straight at you stay true shapes: a front face of a box is a real rectangle. Only the sides that go away are drawn slanting towards the vanishing point.

Things that are closer look bigger and things that are farther look smaller. A row of equal poles gets smaller and closer together as it goes away.

A road drawn in one-point perspectiveA road narrows towards a dot on a dashed horizon line. Two box-shaped houses stand beside the road, with dashed guide lines from their sides running to the same vanishing point. Vanishing point Horizon line Front Front Road
All the guide lines run to the one vanishing point on the horizon.

Worked examples

See how it works

  1. Drawing a road

    Step 1: draw a horizontal horizon line across the middle of the page. Step 2: mark a dot on it, the vanishing point. Step 3: from two points at the bottom edge of the page, draw straight lines to the dot. These are the edges of the road. Step 4: draw a dashed centre line to the dot as well.

  2. Drawing a box below eye level

    Draw a rectangle for the front face. From its top-right corner and bottom-right corner draw light lines towards the vanishing point. Stop them at the same distance and join them with a vertical line. That is the side face of the box. Rub out the extra guide lines.

  3. A row of poles

    Draw the first pole tall, for example 8 cm. The next poles are shorter, for example 6 cm, 4.5 cm and 3 cm. The tops of all poles lie on one guide line that runs to the vanishing point, and so do the bottoms.

  4. Moving the horizon

    If you put the horizon high on the page, we see more ground, as if looking down from a height. If you put it low, we see more sky.

Try it at home

Draw a street in perspective

You will need

  • A sheet of plain paper
  • A pencil
  • A ruler
  • An eraser
  • Colour pencils

What to do

  1. Use the ruler to draw a light horizon line across the middle of the paper.
  2. Mark a vanishing point in the middle of the line.
  3. Draw the road: two lines from the bottom edge to the vanishing point.
  4. Draw a box on each side of the road for the front of a house. Use light lines to the vanishing point for the sides.
  5. Rub out extra lines, then add doors and windows and colour your street.

Ask a grown-up: No special help is needed. An adult can check that your lines all go to the one vanishing point.

Practice sheet

Check what you learned

Write your answers in a notebook, or print this sheet and write on it. When you finish, mark your work with the answer key.

Practice sheet: One-point perspective drawing (Classes 6-8, Drawing and craft)

  1. What is the horizon line?
  2. What is the vanishing point?
  3. How many vanishing points are there in one-point perspective?
  4. Railway lines are the same distance apart everywhere. How do they look far away in a drawing?
  5. Which looks bigger in a drawing: a pole near you or a pole far away?
  6. What are the guide lines that run to the vanishing point called?
  7. In one-point perspective, is the front face of a box facing you drawn as a true rectangle or as a slanted shape?
  8. You draw a row of equal poles going away along a road. How should their size change?
  9. If you draw the horizon line very low on the page, what will you see more of in the picture?
  10. Write the first three steps for drawing a road in one-point perspective.

Answer key

Answers: One-point perspective drawing

Do the practice sheet first, then check here. If an answer is different from yours, read the lesson again and try once more.

  1. A line across the picture at the level of the viewer's eyes, where sky and ground seem to meet.
  2. A point on the horizon line where lines going away from us seem to meet.
  3. One.
  4. They seem to come closer together and meet at the vanishing point.
  5. The pole that is near you.
  6. Orthogonal lines (also called receding lines or guide lines).
  7. A true rectangle.
  8. They should get smaller and closer together as they go away.
  9. More sky.
  10. Draw a horizon line, mark a vanishing point on it, and draw two lines from the bottom edge of the page to the vanishing point for the road edges.

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