Essentials of Perspective

Essentials of Perspective is a beautiful handy and illustrated book available for free download. The book is of easy reading, but not superficial.

W. K. Miller, the author of the book, says in the Preface of his book:

I do not claim to have discovered any new thing, either in the principles or possible applications of perspective science. But it has occurred to me, as I know it has occurred to many others with a similar experience in teaching drawing, that a book on perspective, which should be exhaustive enough to redeem the study from the contempt with which it is too often treated by artists—an estimate which is, to a considerable extent, justified by such presentations of it as are usually found in the “hand-” and “text-books” in common use–and yet free, as far as possible, from the technical difficulties which the unscientific mind is pretty sure to encounter in the profounder treatises, might be of use.

Unleash the artist within you! Release your inspiration! Enjoy and draw with simple pencils, or ink materials, those landscape you see when you travel. Forget the digital camera for a few moments. Open your notebook, or a simple sketchbook, and begin making your own hand sketches with true perspective. One of the secret to artistic success is the knowledge of the foundations of perspective. Now you have the opportunity to download a free book to learn those foundations. The book is simple enough for the whole family; specially for the kids!

The perspective is an optical illusion created by the distance of the objects from us. But use the perspective technique in painting was an innovation by the Italian architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446), who first a realistic painting by using the vanishing point. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) also wrote a guide to drawing in perspective. The true perspective incorporates the concept of the vanishing point. The vanishing point is a point in a perspective drawing to which parallel lines appear to converge.

More than one hundred illustrations like the one of the sheep shelter pictured above! With topic like perspective of reflections, perspective of shadows, perspective of curves, etc!