The Grid Method

For Drawing

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Materials for this Lesson:

A canvas or piece of paper

Pencil or charcoal

See all my art supplies

Step 1 - Aspect ratio

The dimensions of your reference image and the dimensions of your canvas should match.

What does match mean? They have the same ratio. In images above I used a 16x20 canvas. A 16:20 ratio is the same as a 4:5 ratio (divide by 4), so in my photo's app I picked the 4:5 aspect ratio (see circled part of the image below).

Step 2 - Draw a grid on your canvas

There are two decisions here: How to divide of up the space? & How granular?

How to divide up the space? You can divide it into halves. This means you have a line going directly down and across the middle of your painting. Or you could divide it into thirds. This can be helpful if you are like to strictly follow the golden ratio. Or you could divide it into whatever you want (fifths, sevenths, ...)

Halves

Thirds

How granular?

You can keep subdividing the whole canvas or just a single cell.

Step 3 - Draw a grid on your Reference photo

A couple of options:

Print out your reference photo and repeat what you did with your canvas.
Find an image editing software and draw lines
Or use an app. I use the Grid# app its simple and free

Step Four - DRAW!!

Ok but how does this grid help me. The key is to use each corner and landmark to let you know where to put your line.

Lets examine the bottom right corner of the image. We notice that some parts of the petal should come near certain corners(yellow). That some edges should be below certain lines (blue). Or that some lines are near the center of some of cells (red). And you keep doing that for every line, shape or shadow that you want to capture. Repeatedly asking yourself: Is x above or below this line? Is it near this corner? Is it more on the left/right/top/bottom part of this cell? Is it parallel or at an angle from my grid line?...

Of course part of drawing from an image is deciding what details you would like to capture and which to leave out. This is a judgement call and a stylistic choice.

Here's my go using the grid to guide my drawing of this flower.

To see me draw this flower using the grid watch this video on Youtube.

See the next step: How to use grid method for painting.

To get see what I use to draw go to my art supplies page.

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