Pencil measuring technique lots of information in the pencil measuring technique
Pencil measuring technique is all about the relationship of the features of the face so that they are accurately placed in the portrait an in this demonstration I am not concentrating too much on an actual finished portrait. Above is the photo that I am going to draw from to show you the pencil measuring technique. Here we are capturing the angle of the top of the eyes using the pencil held horizontally.
Here I am using the pencil held vertically and placed at the right side of the eye and if you look down the pencil to where the right side of the nose comes you can see that there is a slight gap between the right side of the nose and the vertical pencil so you can accurately put these measurements down on your drawing paper.
Still using the pencil held vertically we now hold it to the right corner of the left eye and if we look down the pencil again we can see that the left corner of the mouth extends about a quarter of an inch to the left of the vertical pencil.
Holding the pencil horizontally this time underneath the nose we can see where the bottom of the ear comes to, does the bottom of the ear come below or above the horizontal pencil, here it comes slightly below.
Here we hold the pencil vertically again between the the eyes and if you look down the pencil it should go down through the centre of the lips and chin. If the head was tilted upwards to the right or left then the angle of the head would still be measured from between the eyebrows and centre of the lips and chin. If the face was looking straight at us (Full frontal) we would get our angle with the pencil still held between the brow of the eyes, through the centre bulbous end of the nose and through the little crevice at the centre part of the top lip and through the middle of the chin, this is known as the central axis of the head.
To find out how far down the horizontal line of the eyes are in relation to the whole head, hold the pencil vertically with the top of the pencil held at the top of the head we then mark off with our forefinger where the centre corner of the eyes come to. Holding this measurement bring it down so this time the top of the pencil is held at the centre corner of the eyes and then we can see where our forefinger comes to at the bottom of the chin. You will find in the example on the left that the first measurement from the top of the head to the centre corner of the eye is exactly the same as the second measurement from the eye to the chin and using this technique you can compare distances and relationships of the features to one another.
