How to grid and enlarge a portrait

Find a high resolution black and white image of a human face. Close-ups work best. Wrinkles and texture are good things to look for. Make sure the portrait exhibits a good range of values, bright highlights and darks. This will give you distinct range to work in. Grey fuzzy images will result in grey fuzzy drawings. Not recommended.

Look in magazines, books on photography, finally, very large images from the internet may work as well. Or use an actual photograph, scan it into photoshop and convert it to grey scale.

Good examples of portraits with a full range of values and interesting textures.

The photo/image should be bigger than a snapshop but not larger than 4" x 6".
You will enlarge the image, double it in size. 4 x 6 = 8 x 12. It must fit on your 11 x 14 paper. Ideally your drawing should be approximately 8 x 10 inches.

Once you have chosen your image, using a ruler, draw a grid on it. This can be done in inches or you can simple divide it into equal parts. Each square on your image/photo should be approximately 1/2".



Next draw a grid on your paper that is twice as big but do not increase the number of squares in the grid, make the squares bigger. Squares on your drawing paper should be approximately 1".

Once you have a grid on your photo/image and a enlarged grid on you paper you are ready to draw! Begin the project with a very light overall contour line drawing. Go square by square, be methodical and make sure your are working in the correct corresponding square. Once the line drawing is down make a little view finder to help you focus on a single square in your gridded photograph. Start by blocking out values. Gradually a blurry version of the photo/image will appear. Then its time to focus on details, the shapes, the subtle texture of the surface. Forget what you are drawing and just draw what you see.

Due 2/24/09