Drawing an Arch, Perspectively Correct

Overview
Drawing arches can be a formidable task, often resulting with a drawing NOT containing the
desired arches and many scrunched up pieces of paper tossed in the waste basket, as well
as a lot of frustration.
Heres an easy way to draw them, and have them look good, perspectively, too
!n Figure A, weve already set our hori"on line #line $% and vanishing point. &ine ' represents
the top of the arch. &ines ( and ) are the sides of the arch.
The ne*t little trick is to draw diagonal lines from opposite corners of lines ( and ). +here
the two diagonal lines #lines , and - in figure B% cross is our centre. .inding the centre this
way can be very helpful in many circumstances.
&ine / in Figure C helps us find the hori"ontal centre of the cube area, while line 0 defines
the vertical centre, which is where the very upper peak of our arch will touch.
Figure D shows the arch drawn in marker over the lines. ! decided to start the angle of the
arches up higher than the centre line, so ! drew another line, line ), to show this area where
the arches begin to curve. The corner closest to you is always made slightly larger, since
being closer to you, you will see more of it than the corner farthest from you. 1ound the tops
and you have your arch.
Putting Some Arches Together
Our finished bridge is going to have four arches in total. Figure E shows the basic lines
drawn out. &ine $ is the hori"on line. &ine ' is the bottom of the arches, while line ( is the top
of the arches. &ine ) is the top of the bridge.
2asically, what will be done here is to set, side by side, the 3bo*es of arches weve 4ust
learned how to draw. 2ut we dont want the sides of each arch to be touching its neighbour,
so !ve drawn a line on each side of each 3arch bo* which will serve as the sides of the
arches. !f youre not sure what !m trying to say, 4ust take a look at the finished bridge and
youll see how there is a distance between each.
!n Figure G, the two diagonal lines are drawn in for each arch. This gives us our centres.
!n Figure , line $ is drawn to indicate where ! was going to start curving the shape of the
arches. Drawing this line for this purpose will ensure that each arch curves at the right spot.
Figure ! shows the arch tops drawn in. Notice how the sides of each arch follow the inside
lines of each 5arch bo*6.
To make the arches look dimensional, ! drew in the 5depth6 of each arch as in Figure ".
Now, were getting down to the easy parts 7hading and drawing 8 portion of the finished
arched bridge is shown on the ne*t page.
Have fun