The ultimate guide: How to draw a box in perspective

Unlock the secrets of realistic drawings and take your art to new heights by learning how to draw a box in perspective.

By learning these tips below it can help you draw whatever you want!

Understanding perspective is crucial to create compelling and realistic artworks. If you want to improve your art and illustrations, mastering perspective is essential.

Perspective drawing is important as you can create the illusion of depth and dimension on a two-dimensional surface. The more your artworks appear three-dimensional on the page, the better your drawings will be.

By discovering how to use perspective in your illustrations, you can bring a sense of realism and believability to any image you create. Regardless of the artistic tool you use to create your art.

What you will learn from this article

• What perspective is and why it’s important
• What basic forms / shapes are
• How to draw a box in perspective (a step-by-step guide)
• Box in perspective visuals
• Bonus tips throughout!

Learning how to draw a box in perspective was (and still is!) crucial in improving my illustration work, and I’m confident it will help yours too.

Ultimately, you will learn how to take your perspective drawing to the next level.

Understanding Perspective

Perspective refers to the way in which objects appear to change in size and shape as they move away from the viewer. This is in accordance with geometry and optics.

Perspective drawings have a horizon line, vanishing points, which objects in one given scene converge to. Understanding and mastering perspective can help you create engaging artworks.

“Everything in the world around you follows these rules of perspective. At this point, it should be pretty clear how the importance of perspective in art should be to you. It’s all illusion, but absolutely necessary if you want your drawings to look more realistic.”

The Importance of perspective in art – Myra Naito

Additionally to vanishing points, there are also different types of perspective. Two-point perspective uses two vanishing points, and three for three-point perspective.

Drawing with basic forms

To help draw a box in perspective, you need to learn how to break down complex objects into simple shapes. Deconstructing objects into basic forms allows you to understand underlying structure.

Basic forms or shapes are triangles, squares, and circles. This technique helps overcome the challenge of drawing complex scenes.

For example, if you were to draw a cup like the one below, begin by drawing simple forms or shapes. In this example, using a rectangle for the cup, and circles for the handles and top. You can then transform the rectangle into a three-dimensional box, which conforms to perspective – do you see how the image forms? Adding details after the foundations are in place.

This is crucial, as this step forces you to look at the different planes of the object, and how they correspond to perspective. Drawing not only the outside, but the inside of the three-dimensional box.

Learning how to draw a box in perspective is one of the best things I learnt and discovered. If you can draw a three-dimensional box from any angle, which is in perspective, it will help your illustration work greatly. You can then move onto drawing circles (or ellipses) in perspective too.

You can then use this knowledge and draw pretty much anything you want. I can’t recommend it enough to help with your overall perspective and drawing knowledge.

Bonus tip: Use basic forms and shapes on everything you draw – from animals, buildings, to people. Beginners progress too quickly to the details in their drawings. However, skilled artists begin a drawing with structure and foundation first, before adding details. By breaking down your drawing, you can lay the foundation to good structural drawing – essential to improve your drawing skill.

How to draw a box in perspective

With these steps, draw freehand without a ruler. Using a ruler is too mechanical, so use a ruler for step 5 of the process. Drawing freehand without the aid of a grid will help your drawing skill the most, as you’re not likely to use a ruler or grids when you’re drawing freehand ‘on the road’.

It also makes it more challenging, which is what you want!

*Please note* – I have used a digital software to create the tutorial images below. Use these as reference, and draw onto paper instead.

Tutorial guide

Step 1: Draw a T-shape – This corresponds to one side or plane of the box. When creating your T shapes, it’s important that the two lines making up the top of the ‘T’ are greater than 180 degrees, doing so will result in distorted boxes.

Step 2: Draw one side of the box – You can essentially build your box from this point from any approach, but I tend to draw one plane after step 1. This allows me to calculate the other side’s perspective.

Step 3: Here comes the tricky part, draw the other sides in perspective – Draw the lines of the other sides of the box in perspective, correlating to step 2. It’s tricky, but with practice you can improve greatly.

Step 4: Draw the inside of the box – Don’t just draw the outside of the box but also the inside too. This immerses yourself in a three-dimensional space. I encourage you to draw a bit lighter for these internal lines. You can also shade one plane of the box to help you determine which side is which (shown in Step 4.5).

Step 5: Analyse – Don’t skip on this part! It’s crucial you analyse the boxes you draw, and see where you’re going wrong and need to improve. Use a different coloured pen (or pencil), and analyse how your original converging lines relate to the actual lines (with the ruler). It’s important that your grid lines go away from the viewer, not towards the viewer (highlighted below). Grid lines which converge towards the viewer doesn’t correlate to the rules of perspective. Remember that your grid lines converge towards the horizon line and vanishing points. You can also see from my example below, that some of my converging lines are off. Especially with the orange and green converging lines. This is what it’s all about though, analysing, accessing and improving from here!

Step 6: Practice – Now you understand the process, practice really does make perfect. Repeat all the steps above, and change the angles of the box. After time you’ll slowly draw your boxes in perspective with more accuracy.

Applying what you’ve learnt

From here, you can then take what you’ve learnt and apply your knowledge to still life, portraiture art to character creations. Most things converge to perspective, which is why this is such a valuable skill to master.

Bonus tip: Apply what you have learnt and use your new found knowledge on everyday objects. Like drawing a cardboard box, a computer screen to table.

Conclusion

Drawing a box in perspective is an exercise that lays the foundation for creating realistic drawings. It draws your attention to drawing three-dimensions. You’ve learnt a solid understanding of how to draw a box in perspective. Remember to practice regularly, study from life, and experiment with different box angles.

As you progress, you’ll unlock the ability to draw complex scenes and subjects with confidence. So, grab your pencil, embrace the challenge, and enjoy the journey of exploring the captivating world of perspective drawing—one box at a time!

What we’ve covered:

• Perspective is important to learn as it can improve your drawings, and make them more realistic and three-dimensional.
• Break an image or initial drawing down by using simple shapes (think squares, triangles and circles).
• Practice drawing a box in perspective to greatly improve your drawing. As you can then take this knowledge and apply it to any drawing that you want!
• Turn the box around, play around with different angles and keep practicing with drawing a box in perpsective.
• Analyse your progress and see if you need to make any modifications or adjustments.
• Have fun!

Further reading

If you liked this blog post, check out my other article on how to think of creative ideas. A great blog post to help you think differently.

Learn how to improve the accuracy of your drawings, and how they can help your overall drawing skill.

Or discover my illustrator’s sketchbook. Fill to the brim with drawings and creations to help inspire you for your next drawing.

Many thanks for listening and visiting my blog today. You can follow what I’m up to on my Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram pages, I’ll really appreciate it if you do, and don’t be afraid to say hi to me! Many thanks again, and have a great day!