Applying Proportion in Art

1What is proportion?

Proportion is the size of one thing compared with another thing, or with the whole. How big is a head compared with a body? How tall is a jug compared with a cup? How big is a goat next to a cow? When the proportions are right, a drawing looks real. Artists sometimes change proportion on purpose, for example the big heads in cartoons, but first they learn the real sizes.

2Measure a person in heads

Artists use the head as a ruler for the whole body. Measure from the top of the head to the chin: that is one "head".

• An adult is about 7 heads tall. A pupil of your age is about 6 to 7 heads, and a small child about 4 heads. Babies and small children have big heads compared with their bodies.
• On an adult, the legs begin about halfway down the body.
• The elbows are at the waist, and the fingertips reach the middle of the thighs. Beginners often make arms too short!
• The shoulders are about two heads wide.

3Proportions of the face

• The eyes are halfway between the top of the head and the chin. Most beginners put them too high. The hair takes up a lot of the top half!
• There is about one eye's width between the two eyes.
• The bottom of the nose is halfway between the eyes and the chin.
• The mouth is a little below the nose, about one third of the way down to the chin.
• The ears sit between the eye line and the nose line.

4Measure with your pencil

To compare sizes in a still life or a group of people, use your pencil as a measuring stick. This is called sighting.

1. Hold the pencil straight up at arm's length. Keep your elbow straight every time you measure.
2. Close one eye.
3. Line up the top of the pencil with the top of an object, for example a cup. Slide your thumb down the pencil to the bottom of the cup.
4. Keep your thumb there and move the pencil to another object, for example a jug. How many "cups" tall is the jug?
5. Draw the jug that many times taller than the cup on your paper.

5Putting it all together

A good composition uses all three ideas from this unit. Balance the shapes across the page, use perspective to show near and far, and keep every person and object in proportion. Remember: in perspective, a person far away is drawn smaller, but the parts of their body keep the same proportions.

6Look closely

Jean-François Millet painted The Gleaners in France in 1857. After the harvest, three women pick up the ears of wheat left lying in the field.

• The women are bending, but their bodies are still in proportion. Find the long arm reaching down to the ground.
• Compare the three women with the tiny people and the haystacks far behind them. How does Millet show that they are far away?

Diego Velázquez painted this portrait of Juan de Pareja in 1650. Juan de Pareja worked in Velázquez's studio in Spain and became a painter himself.

• Measure the head from the top of the hair to the chin with your finger and thumb. Are the eyes near the halfway point?
• Look at the nose and the mouth. Do they follow the face guide lines you learned?

Try it yourself

Try each one first, then tap Show answer to check.