To manually render a drawing is to make a still life of an exterior elevation or view of a building requires either a natural gift for art or a great deal of practice. It is a subject most usually only taught in a university or higher learning technical school. Some high schools attempt to teach it, but usually in its most elementary form. These types of drawings can be rendered in various ways using pencil, pen and ink, and water color.

The first step is to draw the exterior elevation in a perspective view using vanishing point lines. These are lines that gradually from two single points ray out until they connect to the perspective lines from an opposite side of the paper.