To efficiently facilitate your learning process take your best guess first as to what you think the initial height/ width proportion is and draw out the rectangle on your paper.

Now your guess needs to be verified. First sight the width of your subject’s main body and apply that perpendicularly to the height (line AB). It is also a good idea to take a mental note that the headpiece lies a little below B, but more about that later.

Now check how the width AB fully relates to the height by moving AB up vertically so that A is now where B used to be.

B comes very close to the top of the rectangle. It is safe to assume that this is essentially a double square rectangle which is one of the dynamic rectangles (4) of natural design law.

Once this first hurdle of accurately assessing height/ width proportion has been ingrained – and this is readily achieved with a series of deceptively simple exercises that I teach in my Beginning to Draw DVD Workshop – your next goal is determining shape.

For this drawing I am using a ‘B’ black conté crayon on a sheet of buff-colored Fabriano Ingres charcoal paper.

Determining shape takes a little longer to learn than assessing height/width proportion, but once you acquire this skill then all subject matters, portrait, landscape, still-life, etc. are readily mastered. Figure drawing, though, is a more complex matter.

Drawing the outside shape, the contour, of an object is best described as striking the arabesque. When working with a complex shape, such as my costumed busker, you need to distill the basic elements into a simple descriptive context. The profile view is best approached by completely ignoring the facial features. If you try to tackle the nose and mouth at this early stage I guarantee that you will miss it completely. The facial angle of the face will suffice for now.

To illustrate our discussion so far I have overlaid the double rectangle onto my arabesque. The number 1 denotes a square.