Artist Journal

Explore drawing techniques, painting methods, and artistic insights gathered from years of practice. Each article shares practical knowledge to help you master the grid method and improve your art.

Portraits

Likeness is placement: where the eyes sit, how far the mouth is from the nose, and how a grid makes those distances measurable before any shading starts.

Half-finished graphite portrait on paper with a light drawing grid, pencils and kneaded eraser beside it

The Grid Method for Portraits: From Placement to Likeness, in Pencil and Paint

Grid method portrait drawing from reference to likeness: cells across the head, the four proportion checks, a four-pencil shading order, then the move into paint.

Figures

The whole body in proportion: heads as the unit, the landmarks that have to land, and the grid as the measuring tool for both.

Eight-head figure proportion diagram: a line-art figure across eight numbered grid rows, with the chin, nipple line, navel, pubic bone, knees, ankles and soles marked at their measured heights

The Grid Method for Figure Drawing: Proportions First, Then Movement

Grid method figure drawing on an 8-row grid, one head per row: landmark heights, ten steps for the standing figure, then a 30-second gesture checked on the grid.

Manga

Stylised proportions are still proportions: how manga and anime heads and bodies are measured, and where a grid keeps the style consistent.

Mastering Grid Drawing for Manga and Anime Characters

Anime grid drawing step by step: the cell size for a head, where the eye line sits at 7 or 8 heads tall, and how the proportions move from reference to paper.

Perspective

The converging grid: vanishing points, the horizon at eye level, and the diagonal method for spacing depth without a ruler.

Understanding Perspective with Grid Drawing

Perspective grid drawing done properly: where vanishing points really go, the diagonal method for equal spacing, and why a photo grid cannot measure depth.

Architecture

Buildings from photographs: how dense to grid a facade, how to place a row of windows, and the checks that keep walls square.

Two-point perspective construction of a building facade on a measuring grid, both vanishing points on the horizon line

Using Grids to Draw Architecture Accurately

Architecture drawing grid: how dense to make it, placing a row of windows in perspective, and the checks that stop a building from leaning.

Animals

Subjects that move: gridding a reference so the drawing keeps the gesture and the anatomy of the animal.

Galloping horse in the gathered suspension phase, all four hooves off the ground and legs collected under the body, with a 6x4 drawing grid overlay

How to Draw Animals in Motion with the Grid Method

Grid drawing animals in motion: what a horse's gallop actually does after Muybridge, 6x4 over the animal and 12x8 over head and shoulder, four passes.

Botanical

Plants drawn to be identified: two grids at two densities, the features that must be right, and the pen work that finishes the sheet.

Finished rose illustration and half-drawn pencil copy side by side, both sheets carrying the identical 4x5 drawing grid

Using Grids to Create Detailed Botanical Drawings

Botanical drawing grid, step by step: one density for the whole plant and one for the flower head, the five features that must be right, and how to show scale.

Media

What changes when the grid goes under paint or charcoal: erasing before the first wash, drawing the grid in the medium, and fixing it.

Watercolour in three stages on one sheet: a square pencil grid on the left, the drawing with the grid erased in the middle, and the finished wash on the right with no grid lines showing.

The Grid Method in Watercolour and Charcoal

The grid method in watercolor and charcoal: erase the pencil grid before the first wash, or draw a coarse willow grid and fix it. Paper, pencil grade and cell size.

Murals

Scaling a drawing to a wall: the grid on the wall, the chalk line, the squaring, and the arithmetic that makes the enlargement true.

Gridded sketchbook design being scaled square by square onto a large chalked wall mural

The Mural Grid Method: Scaling a Sketch to a Wall

The mural grid method from sketch to wall: two worked enlargement factors, the square size for your reach, a wall squared before you mark it, and a grid you can re-snap.