Hashim Akib
Perspective is concerned with creating the illusion of depth and space in order to make a painting or drawing appear naturalistic. Everything in the depiction of a cityscape follows the laws of perspective – buildings are the most obvious but this includes windows, doors, pavements and lines of lamp posts. Light sources also create perspective lines, which show in the movement of shadows.
The easiest place to start to create a sense of depth is by ‘overlapping’. Quite simply, placing one element in front of another will instantly create depth. In cityscapes this could be a car or lamp post in front of a building; obviously the closer the element the larger it appears to be. Just by using this technique you can easily build up quite a complex scene by adding more overlapping shapes. Once you understand this concept you can start to arrange the components in a more realistic environment.