Exercise 4: ONE POINT PERSPECTIVE, Drawing Circles and Spheres

An ellipse is simply a circle viewed from an angle. The degree of an ellipse indicates the angle of view. The range of degrees goes from 1 to 99 degrees with the low number indicating a circle that is nearly closed. An ellipse of 99 degrees would be a nearly a perfect circle.

This exercise is designed to give you the basic idea of how to construct a circular object like a sphere or column in three dimensional space. This method involves the following steps.

First, create a drawing by following the example below. Draw a square in perspective as though it was laying flat on the ground. Use your vanishing point to create the right and left edges of the square. The bottom and top lines are parallel to the horizon. Second, create an “x” by drawing lines from each corner. Third, draw two lines starting from the center point and divide the square into quarters. Fourth, begin drawing an arch from the bottom of the center line. Try to make the curve cross the diagonal line about one third of the way in from the corner of the square. This may take some erasing and redrawing, but when you finish, you should have an approximate circle (ellipse) in perspective.

By completing the circle that floats on the left side of this arrangement we are still left with a flat shape. To make the shape into a tube, we can extend perspective lines from the corners of the square to the vanishing point.

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Create a second drawing by drawing another circle floating in the foreground.

Add a second circle farther back in space and then connect them along the orthogonal lines to create tube. A sphere can be created simply by adding shading. Construct a column by created by stacking two ellipses vertically and connecting the right and left edges. Finally, draw a circle and shade it to make a sphere.