• 60 drills

Drawing Proportion Exercises

One measuring drill at a time, for objects, faces and whole figures.

Drawing Proportion Exercises

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  1. Mug handle against mug bodyArm straight, one eye shut. Mark the handle's width on the pencil with your thumb and step it across the mug's body.

Next step Set up a still life to measurePractise perspective next

All 60 drills

Objects 20

  • A bicycle measured in wheels From a photo or the real thing, side on. The wheel is the unit: count wheels from hub to hub and from ground to saddle.
  • A chair counted in seat heights Take floor to seat as your unit. Count how many times it goes into the height of the whole chair, and into its width.
  • Gap between two bottles Stand two bottles a little apart. Measure the gap and compare it with one bottle's width. Draw the gap first.
  • Guess the box, then measure it Draw a box for any object by eye. Then sight its width and height, draw the true box beside the guess and compare.
  • Half-open door, width against height A door standing half open looks narrower than a shut one. Measure the width you see and step it up the height.
  • Halves and thirds of a bottle Find the point halfway up a bottle by sighting. Note what sits there: label, shoulder or plain glass. Then the thirds.
  • House front measured in doors Use the front door as your unit. Count doors up to the gutter and doors across the whole front before you draw a wall.
  • Laptop lid against its base Open a laptop and look at it from your chair. Compare the height of the screen with the depth of the keyboard you see.
  • Level line across a shelf of objects Hold the pencil level at the top of one object. See which neighbours rise above the line and which stop short.
  • Mug handle against mug body Arm straight, one eye shut. Mark the handle's width on the pencil with your thumb and step it across the mug's body.
  • One spoon at half size and double size Draw a spoon life size, then half as big, then twice as big. Every part has to shrink or grow together.
  • Paper strip in place of the pencil Hold the edge of a paper strip at arm's length and tick two lengths on it. The ticks stay put while you compare.
  • The plate that is not a circle A plate on the table is an ellipse from where you sit. Count how many times its height goes into its width.
  • Plumb line through a table lamp Hold the pencil upright against the lamp's stem. Note what sits straight above and below, and how far the shade juts.
  • Shoe, heel height against length Side on. Use the height at the heel as a unit and step it along the sole. Mark where the laces begin on the same scale.
  • Slope of a leaning broom Lean a broom on a wall. Measure how far its foot stands out against how high its top rests. That pair fixes the slope.
  • Teapot split into spout, body, handle Divide the teapot's full width into three parts by sighting: how much is spout, how much body, how much handle.
  • Three boxes for three objects Before any outline, draw only the boxes that a mug, a book and a jar fit in. Get the three right against each other.
  • Tree measured in trunks Out of a window. Use the bare trunk below the leaves as the unit and count how many trunks tall the whole tree is.
  • Two heights across a table Stand a short cup near you and a tall bottle at the far end. Measure both on the pencil. Which is taller from your seat?

Faces 20

  • A cat's face: ears against head From a photo. Compare the height of one ear with the height of the head beneath it, then eye to nose with eye to eye.
  • A child's face beside an adult's Find front-on photos of a small child and of an adult. Measure where the eye line falls in each head and compare.
  • A face counted in eye-widths On a front-on photo, tick one eye's width on a paper strip. Step it across from ear to ear and write down the count.
  • A toy's head beside a real one Measure where the eyes sit on a doll or toy figure's head. Do the same on a photo of a person and note what differs.
  • Ear between two level lines On a level side-view photo, rule one line through the brow and one under the nose. See where the ear sits against them.
  • Face tipped back: chin against forehead On a photo of a head tipped back, measure chin to nose base and nose base to hairline. Compare with a level face.
  • Glasses as a ruler On a photo of someone in glasses, use one lens as the unit. Count lenses across the face and from brow down to chin.
  • The head on a coin, enlarged Draw the profile on a coin to fill your page. Measure brow to nose, nose to chin and the neck on the coin first.
  • Leaning head in four straight lines On a photo of a head tipped to one side, draw four straight lines that just touch it. Copy that tilted box first.
  • Missing half of a front-on face Cut a front-on photo down the middle and stick one half down. Draw the other half by measuring across from the cut.
  • Portrait at postage-stamp size Draw a portrait photo no bigger than a stamp. Only the proportions survive at that size, so they have to be right.
  • Portrait measured upside down Turn a portrait photo upside down and measure it like a strange object: widest point, eye line, mouth line.
  • Profile fitted in a box Box a side-view head from crown to chin and from nose tip to the back of the skull. Is the box taller, wider or square?
  • Profile: how far back the ear sits On a side-view photo, measure from the tip of the nose to the front of the ear, then from there to the back of the head.
  • Sitter across the table With someone sitting opposite, mark the head's height on your pencil. Compare it with the head's width, then the neck.
  • Three zones on two different faces On two front-on photos, tick hairline to brow, brow to nose base and nose base to chin. See where the two people differ.
  • Ticks from habit, then from the photo Draw an oval and tick where you would put eyes, nose and mouth. Measure a photo and add its ticks in another colour.
  • Triangle of eyes and mouth On a photo, join the outer corners of both eyes to the middle of the lips. Copy that triangle alone, then build on it.
  • Turned head: near eye against far eye On a photo of a three-quarter view, measure the width of each eye, then the cheek on each side of the nose.
  • Where the eyes sit on a printed face On a front-on photo, lay a paper strip from crown to chin and tick the eye line. Fold the strip in half to compare.

Figures 20

  • A dog counted in its own heads Side-view photo of a standing dog. Use its head, nose to back of skull, as the unit along the body and down the legs.
  • Arm pointing straight at the camera On a photo of someone pointing at the lens, measure the hand against the head. Draw both at the sizes you measured.
  • Child and adult, each in their own heads From a photo of a child standing by an adult, count each one in their own head-lengths. Compare the two counts.
  • Crouching figure in a box Box a crouching or reaching figure from a photo: full width against full height. Then place the head in the box.
  • Elbow between shoulder and wrist On a hanging arm, compare the upper arm with the forearm on a paper strip. Then set the hand against either.
  • Hanging arm against the torso On a figure with arms hanging, see where the elbow, the wrist and the fingertips fall against the body beside them.
  • Knee between hip and ankle Mark hip, knee and ankle on a standing leg in a photo. Compare thigh with shin on a paper strip.
  • Legs against everything above them On a standing figure, measure from the soles to the top of the legs, then from there to the crown. Compare the two.
  • Near figure and far figure From a window or a street photo, measure a near person and a far one on the pencil. Then count each in their own heads.
  • Plumb line from the pit of the neck On a standing figure, drop a line straight down from the hollow between the collarbones. See which foot it lands by.
  • Quick pose, then three checks Draw a pose from a photo in thirty seconds. Then check heads tall, shoulder width and where the middle falls.
  • Seated figure counted in heads Count head-lengths from the crown down to the seat of the chair, then from the knee down to the floor.
  • Shoulders counted in head-widths Front-on, from a sitter or a photo. Step the head's width across the shoulders and note how many it takes.
  • Standing figure counted in heads On a full-length photo, tick the head's height on a strip, crown to chin. Step it down to the soles and count.
  • Stick figure by measurement Draw a figure from a photo as a head oval and straight lines only, each line measured in head-lengths first.
  • Tilt of the shoulders, tilt of the hips On a relaxed standing pose, lay the pencil along the shoulders, then along the hips. Put both tilts down first.
  • Two adults of different heights On a photo of two adults standing together, rule a level line from the shorter one's crown across the taller one.
  • Where the halfway point falls On a standing figure, find the middle between crown and soles by measuring. Note which part of the body it lands on.
  • Your hand against your face Lay your hand flat on your face, heel on the chin, and see where the fingertips reach. Draw the two at that scale.
  • Your height against your reach Stand by a wall with arms out. Have someone mark fingertip to fingertip and crown to floor, then compare with string.

How it works

Drawing proportion exercises build one habit: measure before you outline. Each drill names two lengths to compare on a real object, a photo or a person, so the numbers come from the subject, not from a rule.

Read the full guide

Measuring with a pencil

Hold the pencil at arm's length, elbow locked, one eye shut. Set its tip on one end of a length and slide your thumb to the other end. Keep the arm straight and carry that length across to the next one.

Measuring a photo

Tick both ends of a length on the edge of a paper strip and step the strip along the picture. The ticks stay, so three lengths can lie side by side.

Objects, then faces, then figures

A mug holds still and nobody minds if it looks wrong, so objects come first. Faces show small errors at once. Figures bring a unit: figure drawing counts lengths in heads, crown to chin.

  • Write the count beside the drawing, such as two and a half widths tall. A number on the page is harder to drift from.
  • Measure the biggest lengths first: full height against full width. Small parts fit only once the outer box is right.
  • Stay in one spot. Lean forward and every length you sighted has changed.

Questions and answers

How do you practice proportions in drawing?

Pick two lengths on the subject, compare them with a pencil or a paper strip, and put that comparison on paper before any outline. To practice proportions every day, do one object drill, then check yesterday's drawing the same way.

How many heads tall is a person?

An average person is generally about seven and a half heads tall, counting the head itself. People vary, which is why the figure drills ask you to count the person in front of you.

Why do my drawings look out of proportion?

Often because the drawing shows what you know, not what you see: a half-open door gets drawn as wide as a shut one. The drills that have you guess first and measure second show you which way you tend to err.

Do figure proportion drills need a model?

No. Full-length photos cover most of the figure drills, and a paper strip measures a photo better than a pencil does. Someone reading on a sofa works too, for as long as they hold still.

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