Tips for painting architectural subjects

Architecture is an excellent subject for artists. It may seem complex and overwhelming, which it is to some extent. But with proper hold on perspective and drawing architectural subjects are great to paint. Here are few tips for painting architecture.

1. Get your perspective right - Architecture with all its geometry is a graveyard for perspective errors. You have to be bang on with your perceptive drawing. Find out your vanishing points first and then start drawing. They will help you keep your perspective correct. Your drawing too has to be good, but it should not become stiff like a engineering drawing.

2. Do not draw every detail - You need to choose only the major details that give a sense of the architecture without overcrowding your canvas. It is not a easy trick to learn overnight. It takes sufficient practice to get a good hold on this. But you can do so only by being aware of it and applying it every time you paint architectural subjects.

3. Add variation to repetitive shapes - Architectural subjects often consist of repetitive patterns. If you paint all of them in a similar manner it gets very boring and monotonous. Hence add variations to such shapes, but make it subtle.

In the above painting you can see all the three tips I gave you at play. The perspective drawing is tight, but not stiff. All details have not been painted, but still it does not look incomplete. And finally there are subtle variation in all repeating shapes to break the monotony, but at the same time it has been taken care not to alter it and make it look out of place.