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Let me explain. To most people, the eye level line (an imaginary horizontal line that passes through the inside corners of the eyes) appears to be about one-third of the way down from the top of the head. The actual measure is one-half. I think this misperception occurs because we tend to see that the important visual information is in the features, not in foreheads and hair areas. Apparently, the top half of the head seems less compelling than the features, and therefore is perceived as smaller. This error in perception results in what I’ve called the “chopped-off-skull error,” my term for the most common perceptual error made by beginning drawing students (Figures 9-6, 9-7).

I stumbled on this problem one day while teaching a group of beginning drawing students at the university. They were working on portrait drawings and one after another had “chopped off” the skull of the model. I went through my “Can’t you see that the eye level line is halfway between the bottom of the chin and the top edge of the hair?” queries. The students said, “No. We can’t see that.” I asked them to measure the model’s head, then their own heads, and then each others’ heads. “Was the measure one to one?” I asked. “Yes,” they said. “Well,” I said, “now you can see on the model’s head that the proportional relationship is one to one, isn’t that true?” “No,” they said, “we still can’t see it.” One student even said, “We’ll see it when we can believe it.”

Fig. 9-6. A student drawing illustrating the chopped-off-skull error.

Fig. 9-7. The same facial features traced from the student’s drawing with two corrections: the size of the skull and placement of the eye on the right-hand side of the drawing.

Fig. 9-8. Central axis.

Fig. 9-9.

This went on for a while until finally the light dawned and I said, “Are you telling me that you really can’t see that relationship?” “Yes,” they said, “we really can’t see it.” At that point I realized that brain processes were actually preventing accurate perception and causing the “chopped-off-skull” error. Once we all agreed on this phenomenon, the students were able to accept their sightings of the proportion, and soon the problem was solved.

Now we must put your own brain into a logical box (by showing it irrefutable evidence) that will help it accept your sightings of the proportions of the head.

Drawing a blank to see better than ever

1. Draw a “blank,” an oval shape used by artists to represent the human skull in diagrams. The shape is shown in Figure 9-8. Draw a vertical line through the center of the blank, dividing the shape in half. This is called the central axis.

2. Next, you will locate the horizontal “eye level line,” which crosses the central axis at a right angle. Use your pencil to measure on your own head the distance from the inside corner of your eye to the bottom of your chin. Do this by placing the eraser end (to protect your eye) at the inside corner of your eye and marking with your thumb where your chin hits the pencil, as in Figure 9-9. Now, holding that measurement, raise the pencil, as in Figure 9-10, and compare the first distance (eye level to chin) with the distance from your eye level to the top of your head (feel across from the end of the pencil to the topmost part of your head). You will find that those two distances are approximately the same.

3. Repeat the measurement in front of a mirror. Regard the reflection of your head. Without measuring, visually compare the bottom half with the top half of your head. Then use your pencil to repeat the measurement of eye level one more time.

4. If you have newspapers or magazines handy, check this proportion in photographs of people, or use the photo of English writer George Orwell, Figure 9-11. Use your pencil to measure. You will find that:

Eye level to chin equals eye level to the top of the skull. This is an almost invariant proportion.

5. Check the photographs again. In each head, is