Why Paying Attention to Ratio is More Important Than the Details

Drawing is just hard for many of us: While we might be following along with a how-to on YouTube, our own images rarely turn out as they’re supposed to. The issue, of course, is not typically that technique is lacking, but rather proportion. Proportion is what governs the relationship between parts, and decides whether a drawing feels convincing or not. Without the correct proportions, all of the detail won’t even be able to gel together as we lose a harmonious skeletal/structural component.

Proportion is not so much about exactly measuring everything, as it is learning to eyeball relative sizes and distances. It provides answers to questions like how wide something is versus how high, or what an element’s relation is to the whole. When such relations are clarified, the drawing solidifies. When ignored, the viewer feels something is off, they do not know exactly what is awry.

By concentrating at first on proportion, you make it easier for yourself to draw. Rather than jumping to commitments before you know all the details, you put a frame in place that makes every subsequent decision easier. This practice minimizes the necessity for continual correction and erasure. Once you set up the main relationships, all sorts of details emerge in their proper places, hanging from a sturdy frame rather than floating on the breeze.

Training ratio further enhances visual judgment. Slowly you start noticing small imbalances and correcting them intuitively. Sensitivity to this emerges by comparison, not by computation. Through constant comparison of forms with each other, your eye will become more accurate and you’ll work faster and with more confidence.

When proportion is emphasized, drawing becomes construction rather than decoration. All of a sudden, details cease to be distractions and are now in the service of the whole. This state of mind yields drawings that make sense, and which don’t particularly limit detail (proportion is truly not a limitation, but the generator that permits detail to work).