Ludlow Art Society. INFORMATION SHEET 2 : On Drawing Sight Size. Does anyone else experience a certain unease when encountering big heads in our Members' Exhibitions? Of course I'm talking about the framed portraits we show and not actual members! In one recent exhibition a painting had a head which virtually filled a panel 50cm high. This made the head around twice natural size. Now if you double the dimensions of a shape you increase its surface area 4 times so to be confronted by such a giant sized countenance is not pleasant. Of course that may have been the artist's intention, any degree of discomfiture aroused could be regarded as a measure of the painting's power. That argument is not very convincing—the big head syndrome is all too common and I know from experience that it is a trap that the unwary easily fall into. Some years ago I attended a painting group led by a former member, the late Winifred Burlingham. One of the group, Val, posed for us. Being keen to impress Winifred I arrived the following week with what I thought was a good likeness of Val. 'But the head is much too big.', was Winifred's first comment. I've never forgotten that! So what is too big? Well–using my own head as a guide–I suggest that the average height of an adult head is around 23cm. So if the head in your portrait is larger than that it is unnaturally big. So what should be the size of a portrait head? It is worth establishing the natural size of people as you meet them across the dinner table or in conversation in the street. In such situations if you each reach out you could probably touch finger tips at arms length. So how big does your friend's head appear at this distance? You can find out by doing a simple experiment in front of the bathroom mirror(a). While standing in front of the mirror trace the outline of your head with a felt pen held at arms length. In my case the measurement from chin to the crown of my head outline was 10.5cm.– I suspect you will find yours will be similar. Approximately 10cm then is the size your friend's head appears to be when you look at him. This is sight size. If you are beyond touching distance you can fix the sight size by holding a page of your sketchbook vertically to one side of the head and marking the crown and the chin on the edge of the page. Using this method–sitting at a distance of about 4m– my wife's head measured 4cm. Fixing the sight size of the head in your composition has the advantage that it allows you to make accurate direct comparisons between the head-shape drawn in the picture and that of the person being drawn. The method can be applied to any object of course. You could try the experiment again looking out of a window(b). Choose some object in the garden or across the street and trace it's outline on the window glass in felt pen. It is worth doing this experiment first drawing at arm's length and then again at normal reading distance. The difference in size of the drawn images is surprising. The lesson to be learned from this is that when drawing you should try to keep the eye to paper distance constant. Applying sight size to a drawing is a good way of disciplining the eye. Acquiring a 'good eye' enables you to assess shape and proportion almost instinctively which is of great value to a painter. Do not become a slave to the method though or your drawing may become tight but apply sight size checks from time to time to make sure your eye is performing well. Is there any evidence that great artists have applied the principle of drawing to sight size? The National Gallery's website is a good place to look for such evidence since it allows you to view paintings in the collection on line. I made a random choice of 4 portraits by great painters to check if the heads were approximately sight size. The table below indentifies the portrait, gives its dimensions and estimated size of the head. (see below for an explanation of how the estimates were obtained We do not know how far each artist was from his model so it is not possible to establish precisely whether the heads are sight size, but the figures show all of the heads to be smaller than natural size yet in the context of the painting they look natural. The Degas portrait has a much larger head than the Vermeer but if you study the composition it appears he was quite close to his model. The Vermeer has the smallest which corresponds to a greater viewing distance as would be expected. The Goya portrait shows has the largest head and it could be that the placing and size of the head was the result of his feeling for the total composition of the picture. Nevertheless unless his subject was very small in stature it is smaller than natural size. The table contains links to the National Gallery's web site and if you get on line and click on the artist's name you will be able to view the picture. Move the mouse pointer over the picture and click again to see an enlarged image. |
Artist |
Title |
Dimensions |
Head |
The House of Cards |
60.3 x 71.8cm |
12cm | |
A Young Woman seated at a Virginal |
51.5 x 45.5cm |
6cm | |
Portrait of Elena Carafa |
69.8 x 54.6cm |
14cm | |
Doņa Isabella de Porcel |
82 x 54.6cm |
18cm |
|
For me Goya is one of the greatest portrait painters. This view was confirmed by a visit to a major Goya exhibition held some years ago at the Museé des Beaux Arts in Lille. There was a gallery showing portraits of his patrons hung at a level which displayed Goya's uncanny gift of making his sitters engage with the viewer. It was an exciting experience and each expressive head was approximatley sight size. Goya would never have been admonished by being told, 'But the head is much too big.'! Robert Kirk (a) (b) These experiments are described in Gombrich, E. (1977): 'Art and Illusion.' Phaidon. Calculating the Head sizes. The paintings were downloaded from the National Gallery site. (You are allowed to take one copy for personal use but copyright prevents me from using them to illustrate this article.) Using good bitmap software (eg Paint Shop Pro, or Photo Paint ) which display on screen rulersnote the position of the crown of the head on the vertical ruler. Do the same for the chin. Subtract the smaller reading from the larger gives the height of the head. Positioning the crown and chin with guidelines if the software supports them makes this stage easier. |