Where to put the vanishing points?

First of all, I am by no means an expert in perspective. I struggle with it a lot and always wish to be done with grid-construction and start painting. But looking at my work and my workflow, I realized that I always bites me in the behind, if I am sloppy with the beginnings of a painting.

So one problem I am always facing is "Where to put the vanishing points?"

I feel like this is something, I don't read a lot about. Maybe I just haven't found the right source. It is one thing to know how to construct a grid. But another to use the grid in a way that helps to communicate visually with the viewer in the right way.

So I think that there usually is one "main vanishing" point. It is the one most objects in the scene adhere to. This main vanishing point informs all the other ones and should be placed carefully.

Lets look at a pro and see how he does it.

Martin Deschambault

Looking at it closely, we can discover converging lines. The vanishing point must be inside the picture-plane.

The lines lead us towards the vanishing point. By putting it inside the picture-plane, we can lead the viewer to a certain point by having a lot of lines point there. Also known as "Spokewheeling".  In this case, the 2 persons become this center and we are lead there.

So in this example, one vanishing point is on the focal point!

Please note, that there is more than one vanishing point in the above image. The second one is far out of the picture-plane to the right. Can you see it? By putting one inside the picture-plane, the other one has to be outside. Why? Because of another very importing topic of perspective, which is "lenses" or "lense-width". But I will discuss this another day.

Now more examples. See if you can find the main vanishing point.

Please note, that this is only one way to use a vanishing point to guide the viewer's eye. There are many others and all are valuable. But as a start, this is a very good way to start a painting.

​I hope it helps :)