One of the most exciting parts of teaching high school art is watching students take the skills we’ve practiced in small studies and apply them to a major project. My students completed their first big assignment of the semester: one-point perspective drawings.
Before beginning this project, we spent time learning the building blocks of drawing—contour lines, proportion, shading to show form, and linear perspective. Understanding perspective not only makes drawings more realistic, but it also helps young artists think critically about space, depth, and design.
In this project, students combined linear perspective with other depth cues like overlapping, size variation, and placement on the page.
I love how this assignment gives students both structure and freedom: structure in the rules of perspective, and freedom in the way they design their imaginary spaces. You can see their individual styles shine through.
I see perspective drawing as more than just a technical exercise—it’s a way to teach patience, problem solving, and artistic confidence. These are skills my students will carry forward into every creative challenge this school year and beyond. I’m proud of their hard work, and I can’t wait to see how they apply these foundations in our upcoming projects.
