5 Eyes Wide

The human face is basically 5 eyes wide. This is a standard measurement artists use to draw a portrait. Peoples faces vary slightly from this; some have slightly more than an eye width between their two eyes and some have slightly less space. The middle school class drew a front view line drawing similar to this, first in pencil and then tracing over it in Sharpie.

We divided the paper vertically and horizontally. Next we made tick marks 1/2 inch to each side of the center on the horizontal line. Then we made 2 tick marks on each side 1 inch apart beginning at the 1/2 inch tick. On the vertical line we made tick marks going up and down 4 inches each way. Using those marks we drew an egg shape that was 5 inches by 8 inches with the narrow end down. Using a diagram similar to the one below we added eyes, a nose, mouth and eyebrows.