Instead of creating a spreadsheet for scaling up from your reference you can get what is called a "proportion wheel". It does the calculations for you and has been used by illustrators for decades.

Another useful measuring device is a pair of calipers. This is especially helpful if you blow your reference up to painting size. You can measure the distance between the eyes on the reference and then move the calipers over to the painting. You don't even have to make a mental note that it's 17/20ths of an inch or anything like that.

I use basically the same method as Mike. As a drafter and designer of ductwork (haha) and boiler systems I easily think and draw to scale. But I only mark the most important landmarks and use a very rough sketch, and I still screw up all the time.

Jean

One of the easiest/best methods on the transfer of larger images comes from the training I got as a sign painter. It's the method, I understand, that came by way of Michaelangelo as recorded in his procedures of transferring images for the work at the Sistine Chapel. It's called a Pounce Pattern.

A pounce pattern is when you make perforations in paper by pressing into the paper a small pointed wheel (or an "Electro-pounce" which burns tiny holes in the paper) around the outlines of your image. You then take the paper image full of tiny holes and tape it to your substrate and bounce and rub powdered charcoal in a cloth bag, through the holes onto the area. You take the paper away....voila!....nice dotted outlines for you to spray fixative or redraw in permanent sepia pen. You can make registration marks from where you taped the paper and go back and re-pounce if necessary.

To make the best undistorted pouce patterns on the planet...is to print them out on your printer. You can blow up your image to any size you want....even a billboard size.....and "tile" the pages together and your in business.

Dick Blick, whom we all know and love, has been an excellent provider of sign making materials since day one.

Here's there page on pounce wheels.....http://www.dickblick.com/zz289/11/pr...m=0&ig_id=2724

And pounce powder and a nifty pad they sell. (in lieu of just wadding up a pile of powder in a rag and tying it off) http://www.dickblick.com/zz289/10/pr...m=0&ig_id=2720

Blick used to sell the Electro Pounce...but I couldn't find it on their site....so here's what it looks like - http://www.pacificcoastsignsupply.com/catalog/pg_75.htm

-Gear

Michele,

I don't understand how that works. If you are creating a canvas 2.5 times the size of your reference, how does the caliper know that.

With the method I use I only make measurements from the edge of the reference, I would rarely take internal measurements like between the eyes.

BTW - If I need a spreadsheet, because of some odd ratio of say 2.35, I only change that one determining factor in my spreedsheet then print it out.

Proportional Dividers
 

Mike,

I use a measuring tool that is called proportional dividers. You simply check your reference with one end of the dividers and make your mark on your canvas or paper using the opposite. The center screw can be adjusted to what ever ratio you desire. Attached is a commercial set. I use a set that I made. I typically mark a vertical and horizontal line across the center of my reference and then do the same on my canvas. I then measure everything from the center of the two "cross-hairs" and transfer the measurements over. You just simply use the opposite end of the dividers that you are measuring with to make your mark on the canvas. The accuracy is dead on.

I can see benefit to this cross hair method.

Also, I can see that your method could give you a true "distance," but, how does it give you direction?

It's true I have to take two measurements for each point but this gives me both distance and direction to a specific point. Triangulation, I think it would be called.

I only have one thing to add to this discussion:

Beware of WalMart yardsticks. I measured with one for a couple of paintings and could not figure out why they seemed a bit off. I ended up making adjustments free-hand. Turns out the yardstick was off almost a quarter inch.

I try to always draw free-hand first. Then I figure in my head how much I enlarged the photo and make measurements with a little pink ruler my daughter gave me. High-tech I am not.

Hi Mike.

I believe this is "The Tool".

I am working on one too. Since you have made one yourself I would like to ask what size you think is the optimal. The length of the legs ????
I have measured on my model, and think that about 15" is close to what I need.

Allan

Curious question, in the middle of all of this wonderful information on tranferring images, why is it that no matter what "tool" we use, even when it's not strictly "tracing" anything (which, I know is a WHOLE other debate) do people STILL think that it's "cheating"?

I mean, I just heard from two friends that were over in my studio today who said that "even taking measurements is cheating - not that it's bad - it's still not FREEHAND." OK., dumb statement, sure...but WHY, WHY, WHY does this exist in our society at all?!!

Were there THAT many kids who got their knuckles rapped, or at least, embarrassed in front of the whole class for putting a piece of paper in front of a picture to trace the image on? I mean, REALLY? We all know, that you can take 24 people, any age, and give them tracing paper, a picture and pencils/paint, and you will end up with 20 - 23 pieces that will be barely recognizable as the original image. Am I right about it?!

Gear

Hi Gear,

I admit ! I cheat !!

I use all my knowledge whenever I can. But for most of the times it is not enough.

When I am out in nature, making watercolors I measure with my brush and thumb, and in happy moments I can measure using only my eyes, simply by staring for a long time and then seeing the figure on my paper in reversed colors, but in the right, sight size, scale. Is that cheating?

When I do a complicated likeness from a small photo, I take measures to get the right proportions. OK I cheat, but only for a start.

I have never finished a painting only by cheating. I always have to get into the scene and live by the figure, understand it and feel it, before I can do anything of interest.

If cheating is all, I wonder why so few come up with results !

Gear, this is not meant for you, but you inspired me to do this conclusion.

Thanks Allan.