5 Misconceptions About Grid Drawing
There are many ways to get your reference drawn onto your painting surface.
Often we think of freehand drawing first. But what if you need a little more help or really want to make sure you’ve got an accurate translation?
Enter grid drawing.
Grid drawing is a great tool in your kit. It’s where you lay lines across your reference AND your surface, making a grid. You then use those lines to help you transfer your drawing. (It’s also makes a GREAT #20for20ArtChallenge project.)
Often though artists have resistance to using the grid.
Let’s look at 5 misconceptions about grid drawing and why they might be keeping you from a powerful tool.
Misconception #1: It’s cheating
We have a LOT of ideas about what counts as “real art.”
It’s hard to know where they come from. There certainly is no Big Book of Art Laws we can refer to.
Somehow, grid drawing sometimes gets lumped into the “It’s cheating” pile.
And it’s just incorrect. A grid drawing is a tool. Just like a tube of paint is a tool. Or a pencil is a tool. We don’t avoid tube paint because only real artists ground their own pigments or fell their own trees and mine graphite.
You as an artist get to decide what tools you use and which you don’t use.
If you like free hand drawing, great. If you PREFER free hand, great.
But the artists you love don’t ONLY freehand their drawings. Debbie and Brian Miller use simple grids to start their daily paintings. Ali Kay uses a grid as does John Salminen.
Real artists use grids all the time. They are just another tool you can decide to use or not to use.
Misconception #2: It’ll make drawing too easy
Maybe you think it’s cheating because you’re worried it’ll make drawing too easy.
First, there’s no rule that Real Art has to be hard.
And second, think of it like an aid to help you with accuracy. You’re still paying attention. There is still a learning curve. It’s still DRAWING.
But will it help you make sure you have the composition from your reference translated to your image in a more straightforward way. Absolutely. That’s why artists have been turning to it as a powerful tool for hundreds of years.
Misconception #3: It takes too long to do
Yes, setting up your grid on your surface does add an additional step. And absolutely, like anything, the first few times you try it, there will be a learning curve that adds time.
But like all learning, the more you do it, the quicker it becomes.
Even with the added time the first few tries, you’ll more than save that time later by having everything in the place you wanted to. How much time have you lost getting half way through a painting, realizing the composition isn’t what you wanted, and you spent the rest of your piece trying to fix it?
When you use a grid, you are helping yourself get your plan laid out correctly onto your surface. You can trust everything is in the right spot, which will save you time questioning yourself later.
Bonus: There are different TYPES of grids. And if you’re truly worried about time, you can always choose a simpler and faster one.
Misconception #4: It doesn’t count as painting time
Technically yes, a grid drawing doesn’t involve paint. (Although it can if you want to.)
But the best pieces of art have much more to them than paint-on-surface.
To create a painting you’ll need a process that involves thinking and planning time, drawing time and letting it sit time.
Plus, by using a grid, you are helping make your painting time easier and more fun. You are helping make sure that the time you’ve put into planning.
One of the main goals I hear artists say they want in their paintings is to go looser. Looser paintings begin when you trust your painting plan. A grid helps you trust your plan. You trust that the plans you’ve made have gotten onto your surface correctly. And now you’re ready to pull out the paint and get to work.
Misconception #5: It’ll stunt my drawing skills
The great news about working with a grid is that it will actually help improve your drawing skills AND you’re learning to SEE skills.
Here’s why: So much of learning to draw is learning HOW to pay attention to your reference. The brain needs time to take all that complex information and process it in a way you can actually SEE it.
Because grid drawing breaks down the image from one big mass of information into more bite size chunks, you’ll actually learn to see things you might have missed before.
Suddenly you’re paying attention to the angles of things. How objects curve. Where one line starts and another stops. Things your brain may have actually missed when it was overwhelmed with the image as a whole.
Not only does this strengthen your learning to see muscles but also your ability to translate what you see into a drawing.
As a side note, I spent a summer doing detailed grid drawings before painting and it was some of the most growth in drawing I’d seen up to that point.
Give it a Try
Give the grid a try. They can be incredibly helpful if you’re approaching a new subject or are having trouble translating your value and shape plan. Plus they’ll help you improve your drawing skills.
Yet, all of that said, if you try it a few times and realize the grid isn’t for you. You might discover that you really love free hand or that you prefer transfer paper. That’s great information too!
Like all tools in your artistic tool kit, some will be a better fit than others and the important part is finding the ones that work for you.