Tutorial
Part 3

Create a grid
You can print or photocopy to a larger size if required, but this can lead to problems when you divide the printout or photocopy with gridlines.

However, while the photo may be quite small, you can create larger drawings by dividing the photo up with (say) a 1cm grid, but drawing the grid on your art paper at 2cm or 2.5cm, as required. Sometimes this is necessary to make the drawing fit a particular frame size!

Go to:
Page 1: Tools required.

Page 2: Choosing a suitable size for the drawing. What paper?

Page 3: Dividing the image into a grid; creating larger images from smaller photos.

Page 4: Reproducing the photo

Page 5: Final fings!

Drawing a Grid
Divide the copied photo into a grid - ensure you are accurate - to coincide with the size of the frame. In the example (right) the photo of Oliver Hardy is divided into a 1cm grid (8 wide by 9 tall).

Note: A grid is not absolutely necessary - you can try drawing it freehand or just measure certain key areas of the face. You may also be a total natural in being able to judge the relative proportions between the various key points of a face!

I decided to choose the eventual size of this drawing as 8" x 10", so there will be a need to create an extra inch of "white-space", unless I decided on a custom frame.

If you like, you can identify the horizontal and vertical lines of the grid by using letters (A, B, C...) and numbers (1, 2, 3...). This does help, particularly with the larger size drawing.

If the image is highly complex you might also prefer to sub-divide certain portions of the grid even further. This can sometimes be necessary around the eyes of a subject
- the eyes are important - if they look wrong, the subject can end up looking different.

There's really no need to sub-divide the whole grid, as most of the outlining is concentrating on the overall shape of the face, the positioning of frown lines and so on.

Now using a reasonably soft 'B' or '2B' pencil draw a grid faintly* on the art paper with the desired number of rows and columns. Here I drew an 8 x 9 grid to correspond with the photo, within a 8" x 10" area, so there's an extra half-inch at the top and bottom. At least it'll now fit the 8" x 10" frame!

Take a look at the image (right). This just shows the top-right corner of the paper, with a slight margin on the left, and the top row of the grid is the additional half-inch I've "invented" so it conforms to standard picture frame size.

Note: This image has been adapted to increase the contrast so the grid lines do look quite heavy. In actual fact they can (and where) erased very easily.

How faint is "faint"?
It's hard to define how faint a line should be, so draw some sample lines on some spare paper and make sure they erase easily!