How to Find Measurements, Proportions, and Angles to Draw with Pencil & Thumb Method
The only way that a beginning artist can develop the ability to see and then indicate correct proportions is to become acutely aware of proportions by observation and practice sketching. Unfortunately nobody can teach you this important phase of drawing. But you CAN estimate proportions and then check them with a fair degree of accuracy by employing what is called the thumb-and-pencil method of finding proportions. This is done by simply placing your pencil or pen in your hand and then holding it at arms length between your eye and the object that you plan to draw.
AN EASY EXPLANATION OF HOW TO USE YOUR EYE ALONG WITH YOUR PENCIL AND THUMB TO ESTIMATE PROPORTIONS WHEN DRAWING
(1) Hold your body rigid and extend your dominant arm (usually the right arm), pencil in your hand, to its full length.
(2) Place your thumb against the pencil as a guage.
(3)Bring the pencil on a line with your eye and the object that you are measuring.
(4) Try to find one part by which you can then measure the rest of the object.
(5) Once you find a part to which to measure the rest of the parts of the object, you can then proceed to put in the object’s details, still using the same scale of measurement in which you established.
AN EXAMPLE OF USING A PENCIL AS A MEASURING STICK
In this example, you can see that the artist is using the pencil and thumb measuring method that we just explained above. The artist finds that the tiger’s head is just 6x (6 times) the length of his body (from the tiger’s nose to his tail). Once the artist has established this, he applies this same head scale of measurement to the tiger’s height as well (which is approximately 3 heads high). Now that the artist has figured out that the tiger is 6 heads wide and 3 heads tall, he can then proceed to put in the details, still using this same scale of measurement.
A SECOND EXAMPLE OF USING A PENCIL AS A MEASURING STICK & TO FIND ANGLES
An example of how to use your pencil as a measuring stick to find the height and width of the house with the use of your pencil and thumb. You can also find the angle of the roof with this methodology
Here is another example of using this Pencil and Thumb Measurement technique. Take for example, drawing a house from a distance. In drawing this house (as shown above), the height of the chimney might be taken as a standard of measurement. Hold the pencil upright, the top on a line with the chimney top. Now move the thumb downwards until the end of your thumb comes between your eye and the bottom of the chimney. Then draw the chimney. Repeat this measuring operation, finding where the length of the chimney corresponds to other parts of the house. Your pencil can be moved between the house and your eye and by using the chimney length as your standard of measurement, the corresponding length and width of the house can be estimated.
HELPFUL TIP : HOW TO FIND ANGLE OF AN OBJECT WITH YOUR PENCIL : With the pencil and thumb measuring technique, you can even find the angle of an object, such as the house’s roof. Just hold your pencil parallel with the object (in this case the roof). Then, without changing the position or angle of your pencil, just bring it down to your paper and make a light stroke indicating the angle.
ANOTHER ILLUSTRATED TUTORIAL ON THE THUMB AND PENCIL MEASUREMENT METHOD
The only way that a beginning artist can develop the ability to see and then indicate correct proportions is to become acutely aware of proportions by observation and practice sketching. Unfortunately nobody can teach you this important phase of drawing. But you CAN estimate proportions and then check them with a fair degree of accuracy by employing what is called the thumb-and-pencil method of finding proportions.
This is done by simply placing your pencil or pen in your hand and then holding it at arms length between your eye and the object that you plan to draw.
Now, by sliding the pencil up or down so as to increase or decrease its length between the points ‘a’ and ‘b’, (shown above) you will be able to check the height of the object as shown below.
The Top Image You Can See Artist Checking for Height of Cone Object .... The Bottom Image is of an Artist Checking the Width of an Object with a Pencil
The further you are from the object, the shorter will be the distance between ‘a’ and ‘b’. This measurement is used to check the height of your drawing by simply holding your hand and pencil near the surface of the paper. The width is checked (as shown above).
HELPFUL TIP: How to Make Your Drawing Smaller: If you plan to make your drawing smaller than the object or model your are measuring (as you will in figure drawing), simply use the exact measurements between ‘a’ and ‘b’.
HELPFUL TIP # 2 : How to Make Your Drawing Bigger: If you plan to make your drawing larger (as in drawing a small object), simply double or triple the distance from ‘a’ to ‘b’.
HELPFUL TIP # 3 : Don’t Change Position Once You Already Start : This thumb-and-pencil method of checking is easy to understand once you experiment with it. Be sure, however, that you do not change your position or distance from the model once you have started to check, since distance and position change the appearance and size of any object under study.
HOW TO HOLD THE PENCIL CORRECTLY FOR THUMB AND PENCIL MEASURING
Finally, you must know the correct ways to hold the pencil while drawing. Holding it as you would a pencil or pen while writing is INCORRECT. The CORRECT ways are shown below.
The correct ways are shown in (a), (b), and (c). The wrong method that many beginners insist on using is shown at (d).
Correct
Correct
Correct
- WRONG
By holding your pencil as shown in (a), (b), or (c) you will get complete freedom of arm movement and will, after considerable practice, develop a professional touch that would be impossible to axquire by employing the incorrect method shown in (d).
After you become more skilled as an artist, you might decide to abandon this method and just rely completely on your eye to judge proportions and scale. However, even very skilled artists get into a jam every once in a while and will need to revert to their old pencil – thumb measurement methods.
Technorati Tags: pencil thumb method, pencil-thumb measurement, drawing proportions, draw proportions, approximate measurements, approximate height, approximate width, approximate angles, drawing, how to draw, easy drawing, simple drawing, drawing techniques, drawing tutorials, drawing for kids, measure with thumb, measure with pencils
Does this work only if you’re drawing the object the same size. I’m struggling wrapping my head around this.
Thanks for the explanation of pencil and thumb method it was shuch a important topic
Good article on measuring objects with pencil, however, there is no correct or incorrect way to hold a pencil whilst drawing, this belief that there is a difference is a myth.
There is a difference. I use a variety of grips. Now, there is no “one way” to do anything in art, but to say there is no difference is just asinine. A simple experiment proves you wrong. Anyone who gives different grips a try will be able to say without a doubt that there is a difference (especially in line width and edge softness)
it works i drew megan fox
interesting technique hope it works. hard to draw the head.