It was a bit of a gamble on my part but the students have really taken to using a grid program that I introduced them to in order to do what I consider to be one of the most difficult things in art: Replicate a human face.

It can be a bit time-consuming to get the paper ready but if you are really lazy you can buy paper that already has the lines drawn on it but then of course you are not able to erase them as you go along.

The grid app works on any image that you have and you can adjust it to as zoomed in or out as you want. You don't need to only use this on faces either, you can use them on anything that you struggle with drawing. I just suggest it for portraits because that seems like the sort of thing that people have the most trouble with in my classes. Sometimes the results without the grid can be quirky and funny but other times it just frustrates students into giving up and we don't want that to happen.

This one is a work in progress and we are not going to rush it. Once you complete a section you can erase the grid if you want to. Or you could just be honest and let people know that you used a grid app. The idea here isn't to cheat the system, but instead to slowly but surely hone your skills as far as really difficult things like eyes and ears on paper are concerned. This obviously gets even more complicated once we start dealing with paint instead of pencils, but for the earlier stages of artistic education I think it is preferable to give students the opportunity to correct their mistakes.

Give it a try if you want to, there are lots of free apps out there that are very easy to find.