Smear chalk on the back of an original drawing and place the drawing on another surface, such as paper, wood or canvas. Then etch over the drawing. The image will transfer to that surface and will look the same as the original.

da Vinci - OF THE HUMAN FIGURE., W. P. 2a: “From the farthest projection of the chin to the throat o p is equal to the space between the mouth and the bottom of the chin, and a fourth of the face. The distance from the top of the throat to the pit of the throat below q r is half the length of the face and the eighteenth part of a man's height. From the chin to the back of the neck s t, is the same distance as between the mouth and the roots of the hair, that is three quarters of the head. From the chin to the jaw bone v x is half the head and equal to the thickness of the neck in profile. The thickness of the head from the brow to the nape is once and ¾ that of the neck.”

da Vinci - Tur. II: The distance between the centres of the pupils of the eyes is 1/3 of the face. The space between the outer corners of the eyes, that is where the eye ends in the eye socket which contains it, thus the outer corners, is half the face. The greatest width of the face at the line of the eyes is equal to the distance from the roots of the hair in front to the parting of the lips.

da Vinci - Ash. I. 9a: OF A METHOD OF KEEPING IN MIND THE FORM OF A FACE. If you want to acquire facility for bearing in mind the EXPRESSION OF A FACE, first make yourself familiar with a VARIETY of forms of SEVERAL HEADS, EYES, NOSES, MOUTHS, CHINS and CHEEKS and NECKS and SHOULDERS: And to put a case: NOSES are of 10 types: straight, bulbous, hollow, prominent, above or below the middle, aquiline, regular, flat, round, or pointed. These hold good as to profile. In full face they are of II types; these are equal thick in the middle, thin in the middle, with the tip thick and the root narrow, or narrow at the tip and wide at the root; with the nostrils wide or narrow, high or low, and the openings wide or hidden by the point; and you will find an equal variety in the other details; which things you must draw from nature and fix them in your mind. Or else, when you have to draw a face by heart, carry with you a little book in which you have noted such features; and when you have cast a glance at the face of the person you wish to draw, you can look, in private, which nose or mouth is most like, or there make a little mark to recognise it again at home. Of GROTESQUE FACES I need say nothing, because they are kept in mind without difficulty.

Click the image to see a larger version

Leonardo designed Proportions of the Face in order to manipulate and twist it. He could make it do anything he wanted it to do, making many different faces. Lines to move the nose to either side, lines to move the roundness of the cheeks. Lines to move the mouth. Every line on the face means that portion can be moved or shadowed to change the shape. The lines drawn under the eyes can decrease or increase the shape of the eye. The eyebrow shows layers of hair strands that represent room for enlargement. THE ENTIRE FACE IS INTERCHANGEABLE!

Click these images to see larger versions

By using lines across the forehead, he could make the head tilt backwards, as if looking upwards. He created major patterns of complete faces within Proportions of the Face. He also made the jaw to expand and in doing so, caused the mouth to open up as wide as he wanted it to be.

The face can be made smaller or wider by moving the parallel lines further apart or closer together. Leonardo designed the Proportions of the Face so that the nose and eyes could be moved in different directions. You can draw a line down the middle of the eye and change the direction of the nose. He made the face easy to manipulate.

Proportions of the Face was made to rotate, move around and change to create completely new faces out of this one single drawing. Leonardo’s drawing of Vitruvius is a combination of all of his anatomical research merged together.

Shadow used to move the nose. Shadow used to create the arch that combines the eye and nose together. Shadowing that represents elimination. POINT line is drawn to create arch in nose. LINES make the face appear wider. ONE EYE is larger than the other.

Design used to measure how far the nose is to be moved over and provide distance from the bridge of the nose over to the cheekbone. NOTE: The line brought back over the ear to make the face appear wider, by including the ear as the jaw. NOTE: Rings in the cheeks make the face wider and fuller.

1. Shading used to extend the nose. 2. The mouth is also used as the tip of the nose and placement for the nose to rest. 3. The chin can also be used as a mouth. 4. The chin in layers in order to make the face larger or smaller. 5. Parallel dots below the chin place the neck when head is turned to an angle.

Leonardo even used Proportions of the Face as the foundation for his Red Chalk Drawing and for the Mona Lisa!!

TEXT TAKEN FROM BOOK:

MONA LISA: He used a pattern of a face within Proportions of the Face to create the Mona Lisa.
Proportions of the Face contains different patterns, both male and female, including children.

RED CHALK DRAWING: Leonardo reversed the original sketch of Proportions of the Face for his
famous Red Chalk Drawing (a self-portrait). He used the chin for the mouth, making the face appear longer.

(In both paintings da Vinci used the chin for the creation of the mouth.)

A manipulation of SHADOWS, LINES and ANGLES. Leonardo used the right side of Proportions of the Face to create the painting shown here, cutting it straight down the middle, placing the right side of the drawing on the left side of the face, in order to create a new face. Click the image to see a larger version.

One side of the face reversed and placed beside the other. The upper lip of the Proportions of the Face is the tip of the nose for the drawing on the right. Click the image to see a larger version.