Proportion: measuring with your pencil
Art & Design · Key Stage 2 · The School
Getting the sizes right against each other
PROPORTION means how big one part is compared to another part. A head drawn too big for its body looks wrong, even if both parts are drawn well. Getting proportion right matters more than getting fine detail right.
Using a pencil as a ruler
Hold your pencil at arm's length. Close one eye. Line the top of the pencil up with the top of the object. Slide your thumb down to mark the bottom. That gap is now a measurement you can compare.
Comparing one part with another
Measure the height of a jug with your pencil and thumb, the same way. Now measure its width. Is the width half the height? A third? Compare the two measurements directly. That comparison is proportion, made visible.
A pupil draws a bottle. It looks slightly wrong, but it is hard to say why. They hold up a pencil and measure the real bottle's height against its width: about three times as tall as it is wide. They check their drawing the same way. Their drawn bottle is only twice as tall as it is wide. The bottle in the drawing is too fat. They redraw it taller and narrower. Suddenly it looks right. The pencil measurement found the exact mistake that looking alone had missed.