Unusual architecture pencil drawing. How to learn to draw architectural structures

Measure in the drawing

Pencil metering

Hold the pencil vertically at arm's length (left) with your thumb at the top of the pencil. Align the tip of the pencil with the top edge of the item you want to measure, and move your thumbnail to its bottom edge. Without lifting your thumb, place the pencil on the paper and transfer the measured length onto it.

To accurately convey on paper what you see in front of you is one of the most difficult tasks. A few simple techniques will help you make this task easier.

Try to correctly estimate the size of distant objects. Check the accuracy of your measurements. This is easy to do from where you stand using your hand, a ruler or a pencil.

The width of objects can be measured by holding a pencil horizontally; tilt the pencil when you need to check the angle of the slanted lines.

Verticals and horizontals

To achieve drawing accuracy and correct proportions, you can draw a grid, on which you will then place all the elements included in the subject of the image.

First measure the top and bottom of the object and both sides, and then add other verticals and horizontals.

Start with a thin horizontal line drawn through the middle of a piece of paper at eye level. Then draw a vertical line. These lines will become the focal points of your grid; use them as reference points when you begin to draw the object itself.

Gradually make your drawing more complex. First add other important verticals and horizontals, such as doors and windows; then move on to smaller details.

The role of shape in drawing

A beginning draftsman can be confused and intimidated by the complexity of a building. You may find that the finished drawing is inaccurate and that the building it depicts does not look like itself. In this case, it is useful to remember that every building consists of different geometric shapes, and there are different spatial relationships between them. And when you learn to see these shapes and their relationships, your powers of observation will improve, and with it your success in drawing.

By reducing the building to a silhouette, you can avoid being distracted by surface details. This silhouette (on the right) can be decomposed into a large square and two rectangles. Now compare it with the completed building below. Here are other sketches to help you understand how to work with the details. Compare each of them with the finished drawing.

“Dissect” as many different buildings as possible. Try to use shapes such as circles and triangles, squares and rectangles. You can draw from life or from a photograph. After some time, your eye will train and you will be able to accurately depict a building without breaking it down into basic shapes.

So, you already know how to “dissect” the silhouette of a house into flat shapes. Now take it a step further and learn how to break down any building into simple, easy-to-depict geometric shapes.

Learn to draw basic geometric shapes. The ones that will be most useful to you are cubes, cuboids (cubes with unequal faces), tubes or cylinders, prisms and pyramids. The next section on perspective tells you how to draw them from different angles. Once you've learned how to sketch a building using simple shapes, move on to drawing a hemisphere as the basis for drawing the cathedral dome.

Drawing tutorial architectural details is a continuation of mastering drawing and a transition to the study of more complex forms - the human body, head and its details. Drawing exercises architectural details pursue not only specific educational objectives, but also educational goals. So, for example, by studying and drawing elements of architectural plastic forms, you acquire a whole range of necessary qualities for improvement in the field of drawing. You will learn the logic of the constructive and artistic essence of these forms, acquire and improve technical and visual skills, develop spatial imagination and artistic taste.

Drawing plaster ornaments and capitals from life not only introduces you to the variety of forms and purity of architectural style, but also poses more complex visual tasks and requires further improvement of the drawing.

Drawing shapes architectural details is an important and necessary educational and methodological material, where the main task is the need to master and consolidate the basic principles and methods of constructive and structural drawing. You need to fully master all the tasks of the educational drawing, starting from the constructive logic of construction, then methodically, consistently work on the drawing until it reaches a certain completeness with the help of chiaroscuro, taking into account the transfer of the character of the depicted model, proportions, perspective, three-dimensional form. Without this, it is impossible to sufficiently understand the compositional and artistic patterns, the constructive and artistic logic of constructing parts, details and the entire architectural unity.

Drawing architectural elements and their details allows students to gradually, as they acquire certain knowledge and skills, move on to depicting from life small architectural forms, individual fragments and structures and entire architectural complexes, including interiors, exteriors and the architectural environment. In this regard, it is necessary to move on to the consideration of the forms of architectural elements, namely capitals and plaster ornaments.

In the educational task on drawing ornaments, various elements of architectural ornamentation are widely used, which are found on capitals, cornices, friezes, entablatures, and bases. Ornaments are intended to decorate architectural structures, applied arts, and household items. Nowadays, ornaments are intended, as a rule, for decoration in applied art: on household items, furniture, in weapons art, and sometimes for restoration work to restore architectural monuments. The basis of the ornament is a straight flat or curved volumetric slab, onto which an ornamental pattern of geometric shapes or elements of the plant world is applied. Ornaments typically consist of the same rhythmically repeating elements, which may resemble teeth, beads, leaves, flowers, or other objects. In other words, an ornament is a system of individual elements connected to each other in a certain order. All elements of the ornament, the shapes of leaves and flowers, are in one way or another subject to stylization, thanks to which its structure is clearly visible. Along with simple ones, rhythmically complex patterns are used, in which wave-like movements with spiral curls can be traced. Such ornaments are often found on capitals, entablatures, bases and plaster rosettes.

Drawing ornaments from life not only gives you the opportunity to get acquainted with the variety of their forms, but also poses more and more complex tasks for you, requiring further improvement of your drawing skills.

Thanks to the stylization, clear structure and relief of the shapes of the leaves and flowers of the ornament, the gypsum rosettes of the capitals and various details of architectural fragments represent a good educational model for studying and drawing from life.

For the initial exercises, it is necessary to reproduce the simplest and clearest patterns. This makes it easier to understand their structure. You should remember that any ornament in a gypsum rosette or its placement on any object (furniture, dishes, weapons) determines its overall composition, size and relationship of elements. Therefore, before moving on to the image of the rosette, you need to study it from all sides, analyzing the height of the relief in individual areas. Particular attention should be paid to the illumination of the ornament. The surface should be illuminated in such a way that the main structure is most clearly revealed.

When choosing a drawing location (point of view) for a long drawing, it is not necessary to start from a frontal position, as is usually customary. It is enough to first make a linear-constructive sketch from life in such a position in order to understand the main divisions and nodal points of the image, or during the construction process, from time to time study the full-scale model from a frontal position. It is impossible to give an unambiguous recommendation here, since everything will depend on the level of ability of the draftsman himself. It is best to sit in a three-quarter position on the right or left, a little closer to the front, depending on the nature of the ornament and its illumination. This choice of location allows you to more expressively convey the form as a whole.

Drawing an ornament requires precise drawing of the axes of symmetry, which are the most important part of the construction, since the basis of any ornament or groups of its elements are axial symmetries. This can be easily seen in the examples of a simple ornament, where the same elements are located symmetrically with respect to the axis at an equal distance, that is, they are repeated.

Drawing a capital. The most valuable educational models for drawing are details of architecture - classical orders. An “order” is an architectural element of a post-and-beam system, brought into a certain structural and artistic order. Literally translated, this term means “order.”

Order systems, which arose in ancient times and were widely developed throughout world architectural practice, still attract the close attention of contemporaries to this day. Thanks to their proportionality, artistic and constructive perfection, richness and variety of architectural forms, classical orders are the best models for studying and drawing, which allow you to study the logic of the constructive and artistic essence of these forms and improve your visual skills.

Look at the illustration for this chapter. Fantastic! This is a great exercise for practicing more advanced levels of angular perspective drawing. Practice is the key to successful drawing because it is almost impossible to learn and master new skills without intense, regular practice. Whatever it is: music, languages, reading, sports, and especially drawing... to master a skill and enjoy it, practice is necessary!

1. Easily draw a long horizon line across the entire piece of paper. Place two arch points.

2. Draw four vertical lines to represent the near corners of the four buildings. Please note that I have only two lines, both below and above relative to the horizon line.

3. Start with the building on the left. Easily connect the vault points to the top of the building. Notice that the bottom of the building is hidden behind the horizon, it is out of sight, hidden from your view.

4. Do the same with the next building to the right. Easily draw a guide line from the top and bottom of the building.

5. Repeat this process on all subsequent buildings, using vertical lines.

6. Next, using the overlap rule, draw the far right building, hiding it behind the nearest one.

7. Draw a few additional vertical lines from the tops of other buildings to create the illusion of depth to feel like you're in a crowded cityscape.

8. Now erase all the extra lines.

9. Easily draw guides to create the roofs of the buildings. Decide where you want the bottom edge of the building to be and draw a vertical line. This will create the near corner of the building.

10. Indicate the thickness of the building with two vertical lines.

11. Use a square to draw light guide lines from the rear right corner of the roof.

Do the same on the other side, and voila, you have a slightly open trapezoid. Now you can understand why you practiced drawing trapezoids so much in the previous lessons. The trapezoid is a perfect example of how angular perspective works. You can draw in 3D without understanding angular perspective, just like you can drive a car without understanding how a motor works, or use a computer without knowing how it works. However, understanding angular perspective opens up completely new ideas about the creative possibilities of your future drawings.

12. Start drawing the next skyscraper from the center vertical line.

Using a square, lightly draw guide lines to create the roof. For this exercise, let's just draw our buildings so tall that they drop below our field of view. Simply draw all the vertical lines for these buildings all the way to the bottom of the paper.

13. Draw vertical lines to determine the width of the building and connect the corners to the vault points to create the roof.

14. Draw all the remaining buildings, repeating this technique over and over again.

15. Determine the position of the light source and shade all surfaces opposite. Please note that you need to especially clearly highlight where one building overlaps another by applying “secret” shadows. This dark border that separates objects from each other is a very important tool that almost every illustrator uses. Now that you know what to look for, try to find one illustration in a magazine or comic that doesn't use this technique to separate objects.

LESSON 26: PRACTICAL TASK

This is a very interesting and fun hands-on activity: go online and find pictures of Neuschwanstein Castle (this is the romantic castle of the Bavarian King Louis II), a famous castle in Germany.

This castle is considered the inspiration for Cinderella's Castle in the Disneyland theme parks and the logo on Disney films you may have seen in the theater or on DVD. Look through several photos of Neuschwanstein Castle until you find one you like. Make sure to choose one where the horizon line or eye level is at the bottom of the castle and all the peaks reach towards the sky above eye level.

Print and place this image on a piece of cardboard, again making sure it is larger than the image itself by three inches on each side.

Use a ruler, black fine point pen, or soft sharpened pencil to find and draw the horizon line in the photo. Now draw a guide line from the highest point of the lock to determine the position of the vanishing points. Continue drawing guides from each corner you can see in the photo, connecting them at the arch points.

Notice how all the windows on each side of the main building are lined up under the dark roof angles, jutting spiers and windows. Look, even the smallest side of the castle and the tallest watchtower are in line with the vault point.

That's all for today! Share your work on

Hi all! Please excuse me that there have been no new lessons for a long time. This lesson will be the first in the new year.

How to draw Paris with a pencil step by step

Step one. Let's sketch out the main outlines of the structures. Draw the horizon line and background. Step two. Let's draw a bold line around the Eiffel Tower. In the foreground we will add the outlines of buildings. Step three. Let's detail the Tower, and draw skyscrapers in the background. Step four. Let's add some shading for realism.

How to draw Big Ben with a pencil step by step

Step one. Draw the outlines of the building. Step two. Let's add a clock and the tops of houses. Step three. We draw elements of the city landscape, a street lamp with cameras, a fence, a road, and vegetation in the background. Let's shade it all. Step four. We detail objects. And let's add some more shadows.

How to draw a house with a pencil step by step

Step one. We draw a small standard house, as it looks in the village, with a triangular roof.
Step two. Let's straighten out the structure a bit, add some formal bushes around it and adjust the edges of the roof.
Step three. Let's add design to this hut, a beautiful porch and facade ornament.
Step four. Now let’s draw several windows in the front on both floors, as well as a few from the side. You also need some trees in the background and a path to the entrance.

How to draw a miracle with a pencil step by step

Step one. We draw a rectangular high obelisk on a platform in the middle of the sheet, slightly narrowing it from bottom to top. Step two. We draw the lady a beautiful and safe pedestal. We take her gentle but free hand and lift her up, handing her a torch. Let him hold the sign in his other hand, for show. Step three. We outline everything beautifully with a thick line and put a crown on the head. We slightly adjust the statue’s dress so that it looks like it has folds and is fluttering in the wind. Step four. More passion, more emotions, more shadows on the female body. The pedestal should correspond to such a beautiful lady - we sketch it no worse than the statue itself, add a small entrance below, and windows a little higher. Step five. OK it's all over Now. Remove unnecessary lines, carefully outline the contours, put the tools aside, stretch your hands and rub your neck. The drawing is ready.

How to draw a fortress with a pencil step by step

Step one. Let's mark on paper the place where the fortress will stand.
Step two. Inside the square, we draw rectangles in floors to the very top.
Step three. We draw two large towers that come from the walls, strengthen the wall, create a large gate.
Step four. The structure is ready, we remove the auxiliary strokes. Now, with all our imagination, we lean in and draw the buildings inside the castle, small windows in them, and other elements.
Step five. All this needs more realism - add shadows, shade, make a sea under the castle or something like that.

How to draw a bridge with a pencil step by step

Step one. The structure consists of two towers, between which there is a lifting part. But first we draw a long horizontal line, indicating the height (horizon line). Next, we add structure elements.
Step two. Let's get closer to the towers. They need to be given a responsible appearance. Let's level their edges and make them straighter. We make the road and the rising span more voluminous.
Step three. From each tower we gently and affectionately run large, stretched cables, decorate the tops of the towers with crosses, domes, and whatever else they stuffed into them. On the left we can see the entrance to the bridge - don’t forget about it, sketch it.
Step four. Let's add the River Thames. Let's add windows and openings, lightly shade the background behind the bridge too.

How to draw a palace with a pencil step by step

Step one. We carefully draw a template for the castle, draw a line for each wall, draw each tower as something like a rocket. Below there is a little forest, in the middle of which there is a palace.
Step two. Now, using a thicker and neater line, we highlight the contours of the structure so that you can see what the entire castle will look like. We finish drawing several windows and the tops of the towers.
Step three. The building must be voluminous and noticeable. We look at the main picture and draw the details of the castle so that it looks as similar as possible. All windows, balconies, small ledges.
Step four. Now you just need to remove unnecessary lines from the first steps and clean up the drawing for the next step.
Step five. It doesn't look bad, but what's not noticeable? That's right - shadows. We add shadows with shading to the roof and towers, as well as to the main wall. At the bottom of the picture, don’t forget to add tree tops with shading.

How to draw a church with a pencil step by step

Step one: add the base of the building and some flora around it.
Step two: now we finish drawing the walls and trees. Since this is a church, and there is always a cemetery near the church, you know what needs to be completed.
Step three: we clarify the façade and architecture of the church, and also install a few more tombstones.

Step four: we apply even more details to the building itself, giving it a more adequate shape.
Step five: everything is almost finished, all that remains is to correct the main window and some details.

How to draw a Buddha temple with a pencil step by step

Step one: add the main strokes and lines. At first it looks a lot like a regular cake, right?

Step two: we give our temple cake a more refined look by leveling the walls, the top, and adding a small tree nearby. Step three: we now more seriously draw out the elements of doors, columns, walls and nature around.

Step four: now we draw many, many windows throughout the temple. The temple should always be bright and spacious. Step five: now we draw an ornament on the windows, because there are always a lot of people in the temple.

How to draw a city with a pencil step by step

Step one.

Step two.

Step three.

Step four and last.

And for those who want to torture themselves greatly, I give you a more complicated picture. Try it painted night city:

If our group does not have what you need, then write to me, I will try to find these drawing lessons.

Learn to draw your dream home with step-by-step instructions.

Every person has his dream home - that ideal place where he and his family would feel warm and comfortable. Many people try for many years to find one. They say that a wish will come true faster if you put it in some kind of material form. Draw the house of your dreams and, perhaps, very soon you will actually live in it.

How to draw a beautiful house of your dreams with a pencil step by step?

Your dream home can be completely different:

  • like a castle
  • small and cozy, in a rustic or Provencal style
  • high-tech, “stuffed” with modern smart technology
  • futuristic

But, definitely, he must be beautiful and well-groomed.

To begin with, let's try to draw a small and cozy one-story house. Like actual architectural construction, it must begin with planning.

The construction plan is drawn up carefully, using a ruler, so before starting the sketch, you need to stock up on:

  • ruler
  • pencil
  • rubber band
  • compass (possibly)
  • any other drawing supplies
  1. Make an initial sketch - an ordinary rectangle, to which you can then add what you need - another floor, or several floors, a veranda, exterior details, etc.
  2. A house must have a foundation!
  3. Using straight lines, you can plan where there will be walls for rooms, attic spaces, doors, windows, fireplace or chimney.
  4. When it comes to drawing the roof, make the rectangle into some other shape, such as making the roof lines slightly trimmed. A beautifully designed roof will give almost 50% of the success to the beauty of your dream home.
    When you design the roof, draw it as if it were covered with tiles. Tile roofs look very, very beautiful. And how many songs and romantic stories are associated with the roofs of houses!!! The attic or attic of a house can be highlighted by drawing it as if it were made of boards.
  5. The next stage is the details of the house elements. You will need to draw windows, doors, door handles.
  6. Design the foundation as if it were laid with good masonry. Such houses look very attractive.
  7. Now move on to drawing the finer details of the house, shading, shading, etc.
  8. Place trees, flowers, shrubs around the house, let the cat rest in the sun, and let the dog live in the kennel; if anyone loves animals, he will not refuse such an idyll near his dream house.


Dream house in pencil: step 1

Dream house in pencil: step 2.

Dream house in pencil: step 3.

Dream house in pencil: step 4.

Dream house in pencil: step 5.

Striving for more? Draw a two-story house - a townhouse, in which your large family can live under one roof!

  1. The house is built, and built, and painted from the bottom up. Sketch the first floor. Think about what the roof will be like. In this case, it is gable.
  2. Next, sketch out the second floor. For beauty, it should not completely duplicate the first one.
  3. Draw the architectural elements - cornices and columns, a canopy over the porch, as well as windows.
  4. Detail the drawing - draw window frames, shutters on the windows. Add volume to the roof with several smooth, symmetrical lines.
    Draw the front door. Don't forget the door handle.
  5. To the right of the porch, draw a veranda with columns.
  6. Design a “garden plot” - draw several neat bushes and trees near the house.


Two-story house in pencil: step 1.

Two-story house in pencil: step 2.

Two-story house in pencil: step 3.

Two-story house in pencil: step 4.

Two-story house in pencil: step 5.

Two-story house in pencil.

VIDEO: How to draw a house?

My dream house, the house of the future: drawing

If you decide to draw a futuristic house, you can forget about symmetry. The most daring ideas are welcome:

  • multi-level
  • windows of different shapes
  • unusual roofs


Dream house from the future pencil drawing.

Futuristic house.

Modern dream house.

Pencil drawings of beautiful houses VIDEO: Drawing lessons. Learn to draw a House