25 Days of Art: Grid Enlargements

The only time I ever enjoyed math class was for one week in 6th grade when we got to draw.  Mr. I Don't Remember His Name was teaching us ratio through grid enlargements. So there was some math relevancy, but really we just got to draw and color for days. I spent my week meticulously recreating a Foxtrot panel. I was very pleased with the result. Mr. I Don't Remember His Name gave me a 93. I do remember that.

Grid enlargements are awesome because everyone can be good at them and produce art that looks like the source with relative ease. A lot of the time during the 25 Days, I'd hear kids be vocally discouraged when their art didn't look like my example. It's hard getting someone to believe that there's no such thing as bad art, just unpracticed or in the process to becoming good. I definitely didn't believe it when I was their age .

Supplies:

-paper

-glue (prep)

-source materials (comics work the best, in my opinion)

-sharpies (prep)

-ruler (prep)

-grid/graph paper (I used 1 inch squares)

Prep: 

It depends on how much you want to do and how much you want the kids to do. If you've got older kids and actually do want them to learn ratios then they can help with this part. Copy a single panel from a comic book (I used 3- an easy one a medium one and a hard one). Using the ruler and sharpie draw a grid over the copied image. I went with 1/2 inch squares. Count how many squares go up and across your image (the one below is 5x5) and cut out an equivalent square of the larger graph paper and glue them both to the same sheet of paper.

Process:

Using pencil or pen, carefully copy the lines in each square into the corresponding square in the larger grid. DON'T look at the whole picture and try to copy it. Take it square by square, if you need to use scrap paper to cover up the rest of the original image, do it.

You'll end up with an enlarged drawing (if you use my measurements, it's exactly twice as large), that looks just like the original. The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Miss Lucy's Example:

Kid (And Branch Manager) Art:

Bibliography:

I copied the images from:

The Lost Scrolls: Fire (Avatar: the Last Airbender) by Tom Mason and Dan Danko (hard)

Babymouse #1: Queen of the World! by Jennifer and Matt Holm (medium)

Monkey vs. Robot by James Kochalka (easy)