In this tutorial we will learn about grid method, or box method. This method of drawing is perfect if you want perfect proportion to your drawing. It improves your observational skills, even though it takes somewhat more time than traditional way of drawing. Patience is a factor here.
Since portrait drawings requires perfect proportions, this technique is used by experts and newbies alike for portrait drawings. If you are wondering how to draw a face accurately without any flow, this could help you out.
Let us take a reference photo of Ed Sheeran.
Now we will have to draw grids on the reference image. You can choose any image editing tool for that. I will be using Gimp( GNU Image Manipulation Program), which is free, lightweight, open source and easy to operate as compared to Photoshop. Open the image in Gimp. If you are going to make a pencil sketch of the image its better to desaturate the image and play around with the levels tool for a while.
To desaturate the image go to Colors->Desaturate tool
Now the image is black and white. Now use the levels tool. Go to Colors ->Levels
adjust the meters until you get the desired image.
Now this is what we are going to draw. Now put grids on the image. To put grids, go to Filters->Render->Pattern->Grid
Adjust the width and spacing accordingly, also set offset to zero. change the grid color. Now this what your image looks like.
You can change the offset while adding grids to move the grids a bit. most of the time this is not necessary. Now crop the image. Go to Tools->Transform tools->crop.
Click the image, drag the boundaries and press enter
this is what we get after cropping the image.
Now take the ratio of the dimensions of the image. For this simply count the number of boxes. It is 9X7. So the ratio is 9/7=1.285.
Now take the ratio of the paper into which we are going to draw it. Let us say its A5 sized. The ratio of A5 is 0.7.
Clearly the image has more ratio than the paper. In that case take the length of image you would like to draw on the paper, divide it by the number of horizontal boxes. It will give the dimensions of the grids. If the ratio of the image has been less than the ratio of the paper, take the breadth of the image you would like to draw, then divide it by the number of vertical boxes.
Here the width of the paper is 148mm. I'm gonna take 130 for the image. Now divide the 130 by the number of horizontal boxes, here it is 9. So 130/9=14.44. This will be the side of the box. Now draw a 9X7 grid with each side with length of 14.44mm. Refer to the image below.
Make sure that the lines are thin and light. They are erased accordingly and are just a means to refer to the original image. You don't have to draw the entire contents of each box. Just an outline of features would do.
Almost done. Now refer the grid and draw Ed accordingly. You can give labels to each row and column to avoid confusion. It takes a great deal of time as compared to other methods, but the proportions would be accurate and in the end its worth it.
Here are some of my works i did using grid method along with its progress
Hope it helps you. Good luck :)
Since portrait drawings requires perfect proportions, this technique is used by experts and newbies alike for portrait drawings. If you are wondering how to draw a face accurately without any flow, this could help you out.
Let us take a reference photo of Ed Sheeran.
Now we will have to draw grids on the reference image. You can choose any image editing tool for that. I will be using Gimp( GNU Image Manipulation Program), which is free, lightweight, open source and easy to operate as compared to Photoshop. Open the image in Gimp. If you are going to make a pencil sketch of the image its better to desaturate the image and play around with the levels tool for a while.
To desaturate the image go to Colors->Desaturate tool
Now the image is black and white. Now use the levels tool. Go to Colors ->Levels
adjust the meters until you get the desired image.
Now this is what we are going to draw. Now put grids on the image. To put grids, go to Filters->Render->Pattern->Grid
Adjust the width and spacing accordingly, also set offset to zero. change the grid color. Now this what your image looks like.
You can change the offset while adding grids to move the grids a bit. most of the time this is not necessary. Now crop the image. Go to Tools->Transform tools->crop.
Click the image, drag the boundaries and press enter
this is what we get after cropping the image.
Now take the ratio of the dimensions of the image. For this simply count the number of boxes. It is 9X7. So the ratio is 9/7=1.285.
Now take the ratio of the paper into which we are going to draw it. Let us say its A5 sized. The ratio of A5 is 0.7.
Clearly the image has more ratio than the paper. In that case take the length of image you would like to draw on the paper, divide it by the number of horizontal boxes. It will give the dimensions of the grids. If the ratio of the image has been less than the ratio of the paper, take the breadth of the image you would like to draw, then divide it by the number of vertical boxes.
Here the width of the paper is 148mm. I'm gonna take 130 for the image. Now divide the 130 by the number of horizontal boxes, here it is 9. So 130/9=14.44. This will be the side of the box. Now draw a 9X7 grid with each side with length of 14.44mm. Refer to the image below.
Make sure that the lines are thin and light. They are erased accordingly and are just a means to refer to the original image. You don't have to draw the entire contents of each box. Just an outline of features would do.
Almost done. Now refer the grid and draw Ed accordingly. You can give labels to each row and column to avoid confusion. It takes a great deal of time as compared to other methods, but the proportions would be accurate and in the end its worth it.
Here are some of my works i did using grid method along with its progress
Hope it helps you. Good luck :)
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