This document provides guidance on learning to draw buildings by hand. It discusses using broad strokes from the elbow rather than the wrist for speed and looseness. Exercises are presented to practice different lines, shapes, and 3D forms. The basics of 2-point perspective are explained using the example of a shoebox, with converging lines that meet at vanishing points on the horizon line. Examples of student and professional sketches are shown, demonstrating how buildings can be broken down into simple geometric forms.

1. Learning To Draw Buildings
Dr. Yasser Mahgoub

2. Learning To Draw Buildings
• Sketching is a Fast & Easy Way to Draw
Buildings for Those Who are Designing a
Project.
• Showing Your Ideas to Others Or Just for the
Sake of Art.

3. Essential Tools

4. Essential Tools

5. Developing Your Hand Sketching
Grab a pencil (with 3B or 2B graphite) and
some tracing paper.
Start scribbling some vertical lines. Use your
whole arm pivoting from the elbow and not
from the wrist as in the example. Work fast,
neatness does not count.
When you draw with broad strokes you want
to use your whole lower arm and when you
draw small details you want to draw from the
wrist (which is what we are more used to).
The arm approach will take some getting used
to, but it will give you speed as well as
looseness.

6. Developing Your Hand Sketching
• Now draw some circles and
ellipses (egg shapes).
• Does your drawing look like
this? 
• That's because this
expression comes naturally,
without much thought. This
is the mind set you want.
• Do these exercises several
times until you get
something like this .

7. Developing Your Hand Sketching
• Now draw some other vertical, horizontal and inclined
lines. Draw several parallel lines as shown below.

8. Developing Your Hand Sketching
• Now draw some other 2
dimensional (flat) shapes,
like squares, rectangles,
triangles, etc.

9. Developing Your Hand Sketching
• Finally, draw some 3
dimensional shapes like
cubes, cones, pyramids
& cylinders.
• If you need references,
look at a shoe box, soda
can or funnel.
• There are samples of
3D objects all around.

14. Developing Your Hand Sketching
• Now, try to draw the following buildings by
following the illustrated steps.

17. Developing Your Hand Sketching
• You can use your pencil to draw from nature.

18. Developing Your Hand Sketching
• And from an existing space.

22. Examples of Students’ Work

23. Examples of Professionals’ Work

24. Basics of Perspective
• We do not live in a flat.
Most everything has shape
and volume.
• Buildings fall into this
category; they are made
up of simple geometric
shapes filled with empty
space (except for people,
furniture & other stuff).

25. Basics of Perspective
• As you see in this
example, when you
breakdown this
building it is just a
collection of boxes,
cylinders, pyramids
and cones.
• You see these shapes
everywhere.

26. Basics of Perspective
• When you look at a shoebox straight on, it has two
dimensions: width and height. It appears flat and
shaped like a rectangle.
• It's hard to tell if you are looking at a flat piece of
cardboard or a box.

27. Basics of Perspective
• Turn the box and you now see it has a side which
shows depth (the third dimension). It looks more like
a box; it is 3 Dimensional or 3D. Whether this object is
solid or empty it is 3D--it takes up space.

28. Basics of Perspective
• Notice since you are not looking at either the front or
side of this box straight on, neither appears
rectangular anymore. The top and bottom horizontal
lines are longer parallel to each other.

29. Basics of Perspective
• If you were to continue these lines they would converge to a
point (Vanishing point) which lies on the Horizon Line. If you
have ever been to the ocean, this is the line where the sky
meets the water. This is actually the edge of the earth where it
appears to end because it curves. It appears straight because
the earth is so huge and you can not see its curvature unless
you go up in a plane or spaceship.

30. Basics of Perspective
• The edge closest to you is the tallest and the sides of the box
going left and right are going away from you and getting
shorter and smaller. The two outside edges that are actually
the same height as the edge closest to you now look shorter
due to the law of perspective.

31. Basics of Perspective
• If we converge the top and bottom lines on both
sides, they intersect at vanishing points. When you
connect the two points this becomes your horizon
line. This is called 2 Point Perspective. Notice this
example.

32. Basics of Perspective
• This building is pretty close to looking like a shoebox.

33. END