How To Draw A Realistic Moroccan Courtyard From Basic Shapes: Narrated Perspective Drawing
Hi, Tom here, in this week's Circle Line Art School video
I'll show you one way to draw a Moroccan style courtyard
using simple one point perspective, basic shapes and some shading.
The first step in this drawing is to draw a horizontal line
to represent the eye level of the viewer of the image
and then we can draw a dot in the center of the horizon line
and this dot represents the vanishing point for all receding lines.
We're using one point perspective because we're looking straight ahead
and straight on to a scene where the receding
parallel lines are meeting at a vanishing point
in the center of our vision, when we're looking straight ahead.
The next step in this drawing is to draw a rectangle
between us and our vanishing point, the base of the rectangle
needs to be below the vanishing point and the horizon line
and the top of the rectangle we're drawing should be near the top of your
page, for my drawing I'm using a four
sized paper, but the drawing is smaller than the actual paper
and a 4B pencil, the rectangle we're drawing
is the front facing side of the courtyard,
next using your vanishing point, draw a receding line
from your vanishing point, going through the bottom left corner of the rectangle
and continuing to the edge of your drawing,
next draw another guideline from your vanishing point again, but this
time going to the right corner of the rectangle
and then following through to the edge of your drawing
and then we can repeat this with two more
diagonal lines going through the top two corners
of the rectangle, in this way we are drawing the basic shape of the courtyard
using one point perspective, next we can divide the courtyard wall,
the rectangle, into three equal parts by drawing two vertical lines
either side of the central vanishing point,
next in the central part of the courtyard wall
we can draw two horizontal lines, the first near the top
and the second near the middle, next we can draw a vertical guideline
in the center of the drawing that goes through
our vanishing point, this will be useful to make the drawing
symmetrical, which it already is, but we want to keep it symmetrical
so that whatever we draw on the right hand side
we also draw the same shapes on the left hand side,
now draw two more vertical lines in the lower half
and mark the halfway points, now we can draw our first
pointed arch, using the guidelines that we have
drawn, a Moorish arch is basically the shape of a horseshoe,
with a pointed rather than a rounded top,
try to make the arch symmetrical so that the shape of the arch is the same
either side of the vertical line of symmetry that we just drew,
the next stage is to continue to add some more details of curves and arches
using the guidelines that we have already drawn,
so we can draw an arch within an arch, within
the central wall of the courtyard that we're drawing,
when adding details to your drawing, I think it's best
just to take your time and draw one line at a time, thinking about
where that particular line will go and how it will work with all the other
lines that you've drawn, rather than thinking about how many lines
there are to draw, it's best I think just to focus on an
individual line, one by one and draw the lines that are
needed, next we can draw a rectangular doorway
below the central arches and also below the central vanishing point,
now we can double up some of the vertical lines on the left panel
and then draw two more vertical lines in its centre, the centre of the left panel,
and then once we've done this we can repeat these guidelines
on the right hand side, so everything on the left
we're repeating on the right, using our line of symmetry,
the vertical line in the centre of our vanishing point,
once you have these guidelines in place, the next step is to draw a series of
horizontal guidelines on the left and right panel,
once you have divided up the main shapes into
smaller basic shapes and then these smaller basic shapes can be divided up
into even smaller basic shapes, then we can draw some more pointed
arches within these smaller basic shapes,
repeating the same shapes left and right of your central
vertical line of symmetry, as your drawing develops
try to add smaller details to your basic shapes,
they're details but they're not really holding much information,
they're just points or lines or circles, once you have done that we can add more
basic shapes by dividing the panels into smaller rectangles
and by doubling up some of the lines with parallel lines which are close by
the first line, towards the top we can divide the panels
with a series of horizontal lines that are very close
together, next you could start to draw some
smaller shapes to indicate the patterns and tiles
within the courtyard wall, again repeating all your marks on the left and
right of your central line of symmetry,
some of the lines you draw could be darker and some of them could be lighter,
it's really up to you to decide which lines you want to
emphasize more with a darker tonal value
and which lines you want to make more subtle by using a
lighter tonal value, next draw a horizontal line below the
courtyard wall for the start of a reflecting pool, for
the edge of a reflecting pool, then using your single vanishing point
to find the angle of the edges which are coming towards
us the viewer of this reflecting pool, we can draw a
line on the right and then another line on the left
from our vanishing point, then once you have the lines of the sides
of the reflecting pool, a rectangle in one point perspective on the ground,
then you could double them up and then you could repeat the same technique
and draw part of the receding rectangle
in one point perspective again, within the first
rectangle that we just drew, next we could use the vanishing point again
to draw some basic receding shapes on the left and right central
parts of the courtyard, we could also extend the left and right
side by extending the two vertical lines of
our original rectangle, the first rectangle that we drew, next
we could start to draw some vertical lines on the left side,
on the far left side of the courtyard, adding a few details as we go along
and then whatever shapes you draw on the
far left, we could repeat these shapes on the far right hand side,
remembering that all of the receding lines are going towards our
single vanishing point, then it's time to add some more basic
shapes on the left and right sides of the courtyard, the vertical lines
will always stay vertical, but the receding lines
will always go towards our single vanishing point,
next we could add some smaller details at the
very top area of the central part of the courtyard
and then we could draw a small part of the reflection
in the reflecting pool at the bottom of the drawing,
for this drawing I think it best that the architecture is full of details,
all of the details in this drawing are just a series of simple shapes
repeated within guidelines, which have also been
repeated, when a simple shape is repeated it
creates a pattern, then when we repeat the pattern either
side of the line of symmetry that goes through
the vanishing point, we create a symmetrical architectural
drawing of a courtyard in one point perspective,
one point perspective very much suits subjects with a
central line of symmetry, which are directly in front of us the viewer
and they have edges and lines that are receding away,
for example a road or a train track or a room going away from us the viewer,
once you have completed your drawing as a line drawing
you might want to add some shading to your drawing,
for my drawing I'm choosing to add very dark shading
and dramatic angular cast shadows, you should perhaps decide on the shading
that you want for your drawing before you start any shading at all,
so you could ask yourself these questions, what sort of mood do you want
to create in the image, where is the light source of
the light and shadow coming from, for my drawing
I choose to have the sun as a midday sun, so the sun's high up in the sky
somewhere and therefore the cast shadows will be very
angular, because the sun is at the highest point in the sky,
I hope you find this drawing useful for your own drawing,
to learn more about drawing, please visit my website
where you can find full details of my online drawing course for beginners,
how to draw from scratch, plus links to my free drawing tutorials
and links to my books on art and observation,
thank you for watching and see you next time...