Trick to keep your drawing correct- gridding

Top Art Tip to keep your drawing correct and undistorted - Gridding.

 1)    To keep proportions correct when working from a photo you can grid the photo and your drawing paper:

First make sure that your photo and drawing paper are in proportion with each other by checking that they share a diagonal - see below. 

Then where that diagonal crosses the edge of the paper, rule a line to remove any excess paper.

Your photo and your drawing paper are now in perfect proportion to each other - if not, your drawing would be distorted, as in a fairground mirror, too high or too wide!

 2) Top Art Tip:    A simple grid ( e.g for a landscape) would be to quarter the photo and to quarter your drawing paper. Then copy the shapes inside each quarter - larger of course, if your drawing paper is larger.

  You will have to guesstimate - is your drawing paper twice as big? half as big again? etc. The lines and shapes will also have to be twice as big, or half as big again, etc.

  

 3) Top Art tip:    Where more accuracy is required, especially for an animal or a figure or face, draw more squares. e.g divide each quarter above into quarters. 

or better, grid a sheet of acetate using a permanent black overhead projection pen. The squares could be 2cm or even 1cm for a face.

Tape this over your photo. Now on your drawing paper, lightly rule squares the same size ( for a same size drawing), or 3cm or 4cm squares for a larger drawing.

Simply copy the contents of each square onto your drawing paper then rub out the grid lines.

Top Art tip: This has been done for centuries ( using black thread or wire in frames, not acetate sheets!) and should produce a perfect likeness if done with care.