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Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
LESSON NOTES
In this project, we will practice measuring with a portrait drawing. Accurate proportions are essential for capturing a likeness. We'll break the process down into steps, starting with the biggest shapes and working our way down to the small details. I’ll also show you the various measurements and strategies I use when going through this process.
Join us in the premium course to get access to this lesson, full lesson notes, assignments, demonstrations and critiques!
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ASSIGNMENTS![]()
![@dwilliams1]()
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![Clément Douziech]()
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![Sebastian V.]()
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![Alicja Słowacka]()
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![@saffer001]()
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![Melanie Scearce]()
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![Blaise Burns]()
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![@locksmith]()
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![Samer Fakiani]()
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![Kolega]()
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![Christle Panickar]()
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![Sneek]()
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![francesco zanardini]()
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![Geo Lovinaria]()
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![Melanie Scearce]()
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![Micah Flanery]()
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![Micah Flanery]()
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![Bag of Snakes]()
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![Patrick Bosworth]()
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![Bag of Snakes]()
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![Carlos Javier Roo Soto]()
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![@toufubox]()
Deadline: Submit your assignment by 07/25/2023 for a chance to be featured in the next critique video!
Use the reference photo and all the measuring methods you learned in the previous lesson to practice drawing a portrait with accurate proportion.
Keep in mind that your layin will get harder as you move from big shapes to smaller details. Don't draw too small, otherwise the shapes of the features will be too small and harder to draw accurate. Keep the photo next to or in front of your paper to avoid distortion.
Expect a careful layin to take about an hour. Don't rush. Worry about accuracy, not time.
Remember - big to small, use straight lines, measure units, double check, find plumb lines, judge angles. Try to have fun!
Level 2, you're doing the same thing for this one. This exercise doesn't change no matter what your experience level is.
The Musketeer photo reference is from the Musketeer Model Pack by Grafit Studio
Really REALLY struggled with this one. Finding horizontal or vertical measurements is doable, but then triangulating where everything goes when you only have a horizontal/vertical placement was extremely tough for me. Wound up getting pretty frustrated halfway through
Okay this is hard hahaaa. I pretty sure I find the perfect ratio to transform everything in it's horrific version. But I really want to unlock this skill, proportions are a big thing I'm struggling with so I need this ! I just hope that doing it again and again, rewatching the course and critics, will make it possible.
Anyone have an experience of struggling with it and finally succeeding ?
I'm actually getting way better proportions with eyeballing but I feel this pencil thing would be a big must.
Gave it a couple tries! Think I really started getting it around the 2nd try after relaxing a bit more and relying a bit more on my eye. It definitely felt like a puzzle trying to figure out what things relate best with others and finding the right measurements, super fun to figure out!
It was not an easy one. Definatelly need to do a couple more and then move on to gain more insight.
It is hard to get feedback if ypur print is A4 and your draw on A3 paper.
This is very hard and I haven't even tried the human face yet. Will try that next time. Should one stay on this lesson for a while and do a couple of faces before moving on I wonder?
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1d
I wouldn't recommend getting stuck on a lesson unless you feel that you don't have a working understanding of it yet. This is an exercise that is good to add to your toolkit and continue practicing, but if you got the idea, which it seems like you do, I would keep going!
But absolutely doing a few more faces won't hurt at all :)
This was definitely difficult, but I see the benefit immediately. I look forward to doing more.
Well I can see mistakes right away. After comparing at least the left eye (viewer left) is slightly too low, although I guess thats better than the opposite mistake, and the ear not quite at the right height. The lines are not clean, and I had initially gotten carried away and added unneccessary detail that I tried to dial back at the end.
I'm overall semi happy though, many big shapes were mostly correct, but I need to do this in a more disciplined manner again.
Hello everyone,
I did the assignment multiple times. Here is the last one I made. I could not resis adding the shading 😂 since I was working with sketchbook paper and two pencils my value range was limited.
Looking forward to receiving your feedback 😊
The differemce is big when compared, getting proportions right seems like a delicate process
Here's my submissions. I took another long break again because of fear to attempt this one but I'm ready to keep going with this course. I've been doing lots of practice in between (drawing different references every day) and was pleasantly surprised how accurate I managed to get this.
Only the eyes, nose, hat and the clothes were off.
I started off with a very basic frame, some of the things were a little bit off so I had to eyeball it.
Definitely one of the hardest projects so far. This took me an embarrassing amount of time to complete. I did follow along with the demo because I was extremely confused and frustrated. I'll definitely try this again with other photos. As for the drawing, the proportions are definitely wrong (especially the eyes). The biggest paper i had was 9 x 12".
I tried my best...
Here are my drawings for this project. It was really difficult, but as I worked on them, I got into the spirit of the project. I will definitely continue to do more. I know that some of them are not accurate, and I welcome any feedback.
I was way off. If I did it after watching the video all the way through probably would have done better lol.
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18d
Nice job checking your work! This is one of those things that will just take lots of iteration and reflection. The good thing is, it keeps getting easier from here :)
This assignment was ROUGH!
Self critique:
- Eyes not spaced apart enough.
- Made hat just a little too small.
If you folks have anything else you’d like to point out that would be much appreciated!
Tried again with this portrait of Mads Mikkelsen. I think I did better with this one but there are still some improvements to be made. Notably the size of his eyes, tilt of the head and overall head shape.
Attempt Number 2.
I wasn't satisfied with my first work, so tried a new portrait. This time I just committed to a full grid. I took my unit from the top of the face to the brow line, that the proportioned well to the chin. As pervious, my large shapes hit the mark, but my some smaller details are not properly positioned.
I dont know if using a grid for this is a useful tool, or undermines the exercise in finding internal proportion relationships. Would love to know your technique thoughts.
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21d
This is looking really good, way to tackle another portrait right away! Grids are very useful tools, and a totally valid way of getting a solid proportional lay in. In your first exercise you also got really great results measuring by eye with the Musketeer, but you definitely see how much more processing your brain has to do to keep up with the measurements over the span of the drawing. In terms of this exercise, finding the proportional measures by eye will help train you to see these connections faster, and without setting up a grid, so definitely be sure to give it some more practice and you'll see your eye for start to develop. The grid is just providing an overlay of what we'd be doing sighting down the pencil to find measurements, so if you're comfortable with grids, be sure to practice by eye in a similar way and you'll be able to quickly apply the same technique.
Hi All
This was a great exercise and something I definitely need to practice more. I found trying to work to plum-lines ended up just being a half-way measure to trying to work to a grid, that I hadn't fully established, so got muddled. I got the the larger shapes pretty accurate but lost accuracy in the detail (I think my focused dropped)
I don't know if I didn't took the photo right the first time, I used a scanner app but even after correcting there's still errors. Should I try correcting them or move on to the next subject and come back to this one later?
I think I'll move on, but I still want to hear opinions.
This was definitely a tough one. Ended up spending two hours instead of one because I kept getting distracted by the smaller details. Also messed up my composition and drew the image too far to the left of the page.
