Project - Proportions
Project - Proportions
This lesson is premium only. Join us in the full course!
1:02

Head Drawing and Construction

Head Construction and Invention

Project - Proportions

637

Practice incorporating proportional measurements into your existing drawings, focusing on brow-to-chin distances and dividing the face into halves and thirds. Then, create 20 new drawings, spending about 5 minutes on each, applying all five steps you've learned.

This time limit helps maintain focus, but it's flexible if needed. The goal is to reinforce good habits and avoid overthinking or underdoing your work.

We have 20 new reference images that you can use in the downloads section as well!

Newest
Matt Rogers
Looking for critique, thanks!
Rachel Dawn Owens
These look great! These are all accurate and clean portrait studies. The only critique I might give isn’t part of the assignment but I think would make your drawings look even better. You could add more indication of the neck anatomy:
@aub
24d
Proportions! I added the proportions to my existing drawings and did the 20 new drawings. Timing was around 4-6min each. I have difficulty with the gesture of the back of the head.
@lauralana
27d
Abel Velazquez
I'm continuing learning.
@phillip30
1mo
Hi Michael, your thoughts appreciated. have tried to work on your prior suggest regarding the jaw being too big. i think I may need to get a better understanding of perspectives that are not straight on. Any suggestions for specific exercises would be well received
Side Shave Laura
Oh fudge, I made these with Proko's Timer Tool, but I can't seem to find the photos. Anybody know if it's possible to download images from the Timer Tool at the end of the session so we can properly format for submissions? Admittedly hard to critique without the references, but I'm trying to break out of the Loomis head and really focus on that cheekbone.
Rachel Dawn Owens
Nice stuff Laura! Awesome to see you here. These look great! They have a boxy quality which is perfect when drawing the head. I only notice one that looks a bit off and I tried to redraw it. It’s such a difficult angle! I now realize that I need to do my own skull studies… I think the features in this one pose would angle down away from the nose a bit more and the nose could be pushed up. I took a photo reference of a model I’ve got on my desk to help. I love your drawings! Keep it up!
Nick Quason
I feel more and more comfortable with the basic blocking approach, still need to practice more but overall feel good. Started a bit rough but towards the end it somehow felt easier. PS: I loathe ellipses.
Michael Hampton
Nice!
Oksana
2mo
Nick Quason
These are amazing the linework is so satisfying
Patrick Bosworth
Nice work!
Stephen Kienhöfer
Anderson
4mo
Love this assignment. Feel like I'm grasping the first 4 steps a little better, but here come more steps! I kept checking my proportions with overlays, and it seems I like to shrink the forehead and make the bottom third of the face too large. Will need to continue to work against that. Excited to see further refinement on this process in the future!
Michael Hampton
Nice job!
@veryartthing
I feel like the most confusing part of this is trying to draw the bottom plane of the jaw. Really got no idea what kind of shape to make it.
@flixkopf
4mo
Still struggeling with jaws and a getting the perspective of the side plane oval correct when the head is leaning back
@shaun_m
4mo
My submission for this assignment. Thanks!
Ash
4mo
These are great!
@flixkopf
4mo
I've found a cool exercise for this that really helps me learn to visualize heads from gestures before drawing them. It builds from a warmup exercise: 1. Draw a page of circles. I did 7 rows of 5 circles for example. (Craniums) 2. Draw a straight line through each of them, trying not to get too horizontal. I like to skip around the circles to keep everything free flowing. (Tilts) 3. Add a small curve at the bottom/lower third. (Neck gesture) 4. Draw an ellipse inside the circle that is perpendicular to the line. (Perspective) You now have a page full of random head gestures. Try to develop these into heads that fit the gestures as naturally as possible. I've excluded gestures for the shoulders because that made it too difficult for me to invent fitting heads.
@merlini
4mo
Ash
4mo
These are looking good, merlini!
Michal Abraham
I found the jaws being the hardest, but I think it might be easier when I'll apply the next guidelines.
Ash
4mo
Very good, Michal!
Jose Limon Hernandez
Rebecca Shay
I should've done digital but also wanted to practice more traditional medium, so here they are!
Julian Blake
I just finished the lessons today, so I didn't have time to do all 20, but I gave it a shot. I still struggle with that jaw in perspective and with the jaw length and width.
@camilamiz
5mo
Use Code BLACK20 to Save 20%
Full course
You will be given unexpiring access to watch the videos online .
View course details
Give a gift
Give a gift card for art students to use on anything in the Proko store.
Or gift this course:
About instructor
Educator, painter, writer, and art historian. Author of Figure Drawing: Design and Invention.
Help!
Browse the FAQs or our more detailed Documentation. If you still need help or to contact us for any reason, drop us a line and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!