I'm not sure if this is cheating or goes against the exercise, but I used a grid in GIMP. I chose a size and offset for the grid that provided the best points of reference for my drawing.

My attempt before the video. Here I measured proportions with a pencil first.

This is my attempt before watching the demo. I'm still struggling with the measuring, but I think it turned out pretty good!

download link is broken!

what if youre trying to draw the portrait larger than the reference?

Great exercise! I felt, something wasn't right but never I would have assumed that my eyes are too high and the eysockets too small! And now it is so clear that the neck was way too big!

My first attempt before watching the demo. Pretty happy with the result, some outer facial structures I missed, but most key features are sharp. 1. Drawing 2. References I took (documented them in Paint -- no measuring there) 3. Differences (procreate)

This is my try at this portrait. I would appreciate any feedback. Thanks!

Attempted before watching the demo. Please critique!

My attempt after the video. I can see that I'm gaining more confidence and speed in measuring ;)

This was really hard! Especially since faces have lots of complex proportions, and humans are hard-wired to notice things off with faces. It made me laugh. That said, I see why they went with faces since: lots of proportions = lots of practice, and being easy to see mistakes on faces = students can be their own grader. In any case: Compared to my first assignment in "Project - Measure Proportions", I did much better! Besides some things being off when I eyeballed them, for the most part it looks good! That said, I made so many reference marks. if you look at all the marks and plumb lines I made (3rd picture), it almost looks like a grid. It was so much, that I got lost in them and made the eye brows one notch higher, hahaha. I guess the goal is that with enough practice, the number of measurements you'll have to do will go down, as your eyes get better at approximating proportions. I look forward to having that skill.

It’s hard not getting impatient with the measurement - and also not getting lost in it. I think it is not exactly my cup of tea but I’ll keep trying. Used some different approaches. The grid feels like cheating though - won’t use that again.

I think instead of taking a picture, You can put the paper against the screen too. At least if the drawing isn't too large and fits the screen?

My attempt with the portrait from the demo.

did a couple more before moving on to interesting shapes. This is gonna become a regular exercise for me because I love faces and would love to someday draw them well. I'm getting more comfortable with finding several measurements to use for big shapes and then slowly work down to details. definitely lots of room to improve however. I notice my brain tends to see things as too wide a lot of times and then once I compare with layers I realize I made something too narrow in response. Estimating diagonal lines is still very tricky, but I'm realizing I can use plumb lines to measure height difference and it really helping to get closer.

I really tried harder to measure and compare landmarks to find relationships but once again I ended it up winging it by eye in a lot of areas. One thing I remembered that helped with the brain melting of doing these measurements was to take brief breaks and juggle...I'm serious doing an activity that engages your brain like juggling or bouncing a ball really helps to refresh and reset your mind for deep analytical studies. This was a great photo to study and draw. loving the choices!

Stepping back I notice several mistakes I made here. Her whole face needs a slight adjustment to the left, her head doesn't look like it's side profile at all. And I'm not blocking things in well enough 😅 I'm still just trying to draw what I see vs shapes. Overall I think I captured her likeness tho

Tough exercise. I've spent hours to drawn those. But seems to be extremely important. Don't give up, keep going :)