I've thought of using grids before on my portraits from photos, but I've never found it to be worth the trouble.

I think that even if you are interested with photographic realism, it may be best for your artwork to have at little uniqueness compared to the reference photo. To my eyes, anyway, that can give a piece a bit more "character".

That's just my take; I don't know exactly what degree of realism you really want.

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They are more useful for technical drawing (drafting) and drawings of angular things. They aren't so helpful for organic things, which are much more nuanced and don't fit into a grid well. The only time I used one for organic forms (a class exercise), I gridded both pages but only used the grid as a rough guide, still drawing fluidly and sketchily, and basically using the lines as a general proportional reference, since I was enlarging so drastically (from 2x3 in. to 20x24). I think they are a useful tool to lear about basic proportions and even perspective, but I think if used too much they can become a crutch.

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"There is no 'must' in art because art is free." ~Wassily Kandinsky

Well i find the gird usefull when i must enlarge a draw, in general for a work on a wall or something. But personnaly i prefer to only take some points and report them, it's not trully a gird but works in the same way

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Le dessin c'est la base....
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Frankly no I don't. If you look at the teaching of some of the best drawing artists (i.e. Anthony Ryder, Douglas Graves, George Bridgeman, Kimon Nicholades) it is truely best to train your eyes and measure.

A grid does have it's value. I use one in a very traditional manner, when i transfer a sketch or drawing to a canvas or board for a painting. I have also used them to lay out a mural.

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"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer." --Frank Zappa

I used to do grids, but they became too much of a burden to draw. I say, If you draw something that isn't accurate, but you still have the detail and people recognise the drawing as someone or something, then you should be proud of your drawings. Hope this has helped you.

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The problem is of course, the humans...
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i don't sue grids, butt hen again my stuff isn't the best in the world. i did try it a couple of times however and i found them to be more restiricting then helpful. becuase i had to keep to the lines things started getting crouded because sometimes things are still off. i always like it better to do my own thing by eye. the only time i can really see a grid being useful is when ur plltting a mural or a canvas sketch. u want to keep those as uniform as possible

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Grids are not cheats but they are tools. Sometimes i use them to save time if theres lots of details in the drawing.. mostly to locate positions for them. Usually my grids are so big that they are not usefull at accuracy. If you use only tight grids and ignore drawing from life and freehanding you're likely to not learn some stuff about drawing. Ask anyone of the masters and they tell you the same thing.. tight gridding makes stiff and lifeles drawing. They are good at placing subjects to right place on the paper and making them right sized. Use them, but use them wisely.. that's my 2 cents.

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-Mika-

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Grids are an awsome tool that really help make your picture more accuarate. Some people rely on them too heavily though and that can actually hurt the work you doing. Saying that using a grind is "cheating" is rather stuck up. Your not measured on how you do the art but rather the finished project.

Well, I'd say that there is a time to use grids but there is also a time not to. It's really pointless when it's coming out of your head or you're doing a still-life from something that's right in front of you but it's also a good technique when you're doing something like making contours of the colors/tints/shades of the picture. Otherwise I think it's best to do it freehand because you'll never get better at what you do if you don't. It's more of a tool for someone taking art that doesn't have the attention to detail like an artist would. That's what my art teacher used them for in high school. It was more of an exercise to get us on the right track to aquire that "eye" for detail and proportion.

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~L~