Drawing buildings from atop is challenging for some. Here are some pointers that can get one acclimatized sooner to drawing this top down view.
![](https://www.umakelkar.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_3189-2-1024x768.jpg)
Things that are farther from viewer appear to narrow. If 2 dimensions are getting farther from you, the ones that recede from you faster, narrow faster.
Uma
So, if you are top of a tall building, it’s base will narrow in drawing.
![](https://www.umakelkar.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_3190-1024x768.jpg)
You can practice this by placing photographs and then physically tracing the silhouettes to prove it to yourself or to build a muscle memory in a gentle non-prescriptive way.
![](https://www.umakelkar.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_3187-1024x768.jpg)
You can easily ascertain that the theory of perspective lines merging into a point holds. In this case, the buildings base doesn’t fall away from me as fast as the buildings along the streets do. See blue lines below.
Rate = distance / distance in the view of my picture. So if the building is 20 floors tall, across 3 inches in my photo below. Whereas the far off buildings are 1 mile away within 6 inches of my picture.
![](https://www.umakelkar.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_3188-1024x768.jpg)
Here is another example of using perspective to tie down composition. Notice that the building tops seem closer to each other than their bottoms do.
Perspective Guidelines Finished sketch