Three Cube Rules

Abstract

A traditional pedagogical approach to perspective drawing often begins utilizing the same technical drawing tools that are used in drafting. Students measure and plot vanishing points. These are used as guides to establish foreshortening through convergence. This approach can be quite useful as students develop a foundational understanding of perspective drawing theory. Naturally, students transition away from drafting tools and the act of plotting actual points. This transition often proves challenging, as students must now visualize vanishing points that may or may not exist on the media on which they are working. This paper presents an approach to establishing a 2-point perspective viewpoint by following three rules based upon the object’s horizontal position relative to two imagined vanishing points. The three rules focus on angle of convergence, rate of convergence, and proportional width.