How To Draw A Copy Using A Grid

The Grid Method

how to apply the grid method to overstate or transfer an image

The grid method is an inexpensive, low-tech way to reproduce and/or enlarge an epitome that yous desire to paint or draw. The grid method tin can be a fairly time-intensive process, depending on how large and detailed your painting will be. While the process is not equally quick as using a projector or transfer paper, information technology does have the added do good of helping to improve your drawing and observational skills.

In a nutshell, the grid method involves drawing a grid over your reference photo, and then drawing a grid of equal ratio on your piece of work surface (paper, canvas, forest panel, etc). And so you describe the paradigm on your sheet, focusing on i square at a time, until the entire image has been transferred. One time y'all're finished, you merely erase or paint over the grid lines, and start working on your painting, which will be now be in perfect proportion! Yay.

To utilize the grid method, you demand to have a ruler, a paper copy of your reference image, and a pencil to draw lines on the paradigm. You lot volition as well need a work surface upon which y'all will exist transferring the photo, such as paper, canvas, wood panel, etc.

To describe the filigree lines on paper, I would recommend using a mechanical pencil, and so that you lot can get a sparse, precise line. Be sure to draw the grid very lightly, so that you can hands erase it when y'all are finished.

To draw the grid lines on canvas or wood, I would suggest using a sparse piece of sharpened charcoal. Again, make sure you make the grid lines every bit light as possible, then that they are easy to erase when you are finished. The benefit of using charcoal on canvas or woods, instead of using pencil, is that charcoal can be easily wiped off with a paper towel or rag, whereas pencil can be more hard to erase.

The important affair to remember when cartoon the grids is that they must have a ane:1 ratio. This is very important - otherwise your drawing will be distorted! Basically, a 1:1 ratio ways that you will have the verbal same number of lines on your canvas as you will on your reference photo, and that in both cases, the lines must exist equally spaced apart - perfect squares.

Confused? It's quite easy once yous get the hang of information technology. Let'south see the grid method in activity, and it will make more than sense.

Let's say you lot want to paint the following prototype:

This reference photo is five" ten 7". As luck would take information technology, y'all want to make a v" x vii" painting from this photo. So cartoon the grid will be pretty straightforward. Merely if you want to make a large painting, you could also make a painting that is 10" x xiv" or xv" 10 21" or xx" x 28". Why those sizes and not other sizes? Considering those sizes are the aforementioned ratio equally the 5" x 7" reference photo. In other words:

See? Information technology's basic math. The size of your artwork must always be equally proportionate to the size of the reference photo.

Because of this, it's important to be aware of what size canvases and wood panels are commercially available. If y'all stretch your own canvases, you tin can get stretcher bars in but about any size to suit your needs. But if you're similar most of us, yous buy pre-stretched canvases, so you are limited to the more than popular sizes.

So, back to grid-making. Hither is what you desire your grid to await like:

To draw the grid:

Each square is 1 foursquare inch. To draw this grid, put your ruler at the top of the newspaper, and brand a modest marker at every inch. Place the ruler at the bottom of the newspaper and practice the aforementioned affair. So use the ruler to make a straight line connecting each dot at the bottom with its partner at the top.

Now identify the ruler on the left side of your paper, and brand a minor mark at every inch. So identify the ruler on the correct side of the paper, and do the aforementioned thing. Then, using your ruler, make a straight line connecting the dots on the left with their partners on the right.

Voila, you've got a grid! At present repeat the aforementioned process on your newspaper or canvas:

You've now got a filigree on your work surface that perfectly matches the grid of your reference photo. Bravo!

Considering this painting volition be the exact size as the reference photograph, the squares on this canvas are also one square inch. If this painting was going to be 10" ten 14", then the squares would need to be 2 square inches, considering:

See?

Basically, to enlarge the image, y'all'll need to do this kind of math (even if you hate math!). It'southward necessary in order to make sure the enlargement is exactly proportionate to the original. If y'all're non sure whether you've done the math correctly, just count the number of squares in each row and in each column, and ask yourself:

Are at that place an equal number of rows and columns on the sail equally there are on the reference photo?
Are the squares on the canvas perfect squares, just like the squares on the reference photograph?

If you can answer yes to both of those questions, you've got the gridding process down pat!

At present, back to the v" x vii" grid to a higher place.

I find that it's sometimes easier to go on rail of where I am among all those little squares past marking them numerically and alphabetically along the edges of the paper and canvas. This manner if I get lost, especially within a much larger painting with many more squares, I can hands locate where I want to be. I write the numbers and letters really small and lightly, so that they tin can be hands erased. It looks something like this:

And this is how information technology looks on the paper or canvas:

So now your chore is to transfer what you meet in the reference photo, cake by block, onto your canvas or paper. When I use the grid method, I always beginning at the height left corner, and work my mode across and downwardly. Since Square A1 is blank in the reference photograph, we'll motion on to A2. Draw in A2 exactly as you see it:

The grid basically divides the original image into smaller blocks so that you can more easily run into what belongs where. You lot can see that in the photograph, the left side of the piddling bowl intersects the corner at the bottom left of Square A2. So you lot draw the line from at that place to just below the middle of the line between A2 and A3.

That first block was easy! Now practise the next cake:

And so you encounter that as you are transferring the image, you are only paying attention to one block at a time. Don't worry about the other blocks - simply focus on that one cake. Try equally much as y'all can to copy exactly what you see in that little square in the photo to the respective square on your paper or sail. Focus on getting the placement of each line just right! Here nosotros get:

And then the next square:

I think you get the idea now. Basically yous proceed on in this manner, until all the squares are done and the prototype is completely transferred. By focusing on one square at a time, you end up drawing what y'all actually encounter, and not what you remember y'all see or fifty-fifty what yous think you lot ought to see. Once finished, y'all now accept a pretty accurate rendition of your reference photo, gear up for painting or drawing!

When you lot are done transferring the epitome, gently erase the grid lines. Congratulations - yous're gear up to paint!

Video demonstrations

If you lot'd like to see a video demonstration of the grid method, check out these courses on Skillshare. Get immediate access with their 14-day free trial or use our code, ARTISFUN30, to get 30% off almanac membership! If yous sign up via any of these links, I become a commission that helps back up this site!

In summary...

The grid method has been used past artists for centuries equally a tool to creating correct proportions. Renaissance artists, even the great Leonardo da Vinci, used the grid method! The grid method dates dorsum to the ancient Egyptians. It is conspicuously a useful method for artists and aspiring artists akin. If you plan to use the grid method, keep the post-obit tips in mind:

If you are planning to enlarge your reference photo to create a bigger painting, please retrieve to keep the proportions correct. Make certain that everything is equal. For instance, if your photo is 8" x ten", then yous can hands create a painting that in this sizes:

These sizes work because they are all equal to eight" x 10". Basically, if y'all multiply ane side by 2, multiply the other side by 2 equally well. This is the merely way that the enlargement will be proportionally correct!

If yous desire to paint using a pre-stretched sail, merely your reference photograph does non fit any of the standard canvass sizes, try cropping your photograph then that it does fit.

The grid method is not merely useful for photorealistic paintings, merely tin likewise be applied to enlarge or transfer drawings or sketches in any style, such every bit abstract, cubist, whimsical, etc. It'south an effective way to transform that little doodle in your sketchbook into a full-blown painting!

This is Page nine of a 15-page guide explaining how to paint photorealistically.

An Introduction to Art Techniques

How to Draw with Photorealism

Realistic Drawing Secrets

Allow's Draw Course

Cheque out my in-depth review of the Let's Draw Course! It's a digital class – that you can access immediately – taught through videos and ebooks by two experienced instructors. Highly recommended!