Saturday, 28-Dec-13 21:18:00 CET

The proportional divider!

Some time ago I was experimenting with making a tool to help me draw better. I called this “Jens Relative Drawing Ruler”. The idea was nice but it was not very practical. I tried to use this during a couple of figure painting sessions at De Stoker and I wish to believe that I inspired others to keep their eyes open for similar solutions. One day Pablo Bran told me that he found a proportional divider tool. This was a neat little divider of plastic with adjustable intersection.

In the background you can see a drawing by Pablo. He is a really great artist! I tried to find the manufacturer of his divider and I even asked for it in my local art supply shop but I had no success so the idea of getting it and learn how to use it fizzled out.

If the manufacturer of Pablos divider had made the name more visible and maybe even link to a website I would be able to get it but they did not so I supposed they missed a sale here.

Recently I subscribed to a couple of youtube channels about art. Youtube is such a good place to pick up new great ideas about art. In one of these channels, “Draw Mix Paint”, there was a movie about how to build your own proportional divider made by Mark Carder.

His divider is nice but I was thinking that maybe it would be possible to do it differently. At my local hardware store they sell paint. When you buy paint they give you a little wooden stick to mix the paint. Very handy. And those sticks are for free! That is, until now. I went there and got myself two wooden sticks.

From there on I essentially followed Marks suggestions for how to build a proportional divider but I work in millimeters instead of inches and I made mine in the Netherlands and he made his Hawaii. Cool.

Here I marked the location of the holes.

Here I punched hole control marks so that drilling would become easier.

Here is the counter sink tool on that I use to make the holes neater.

Here is the result! A proportional divider made from paint mixing sticks. I use a knife to cut the points. Worked nicely. I will not be sanding the tip until it is pointy just because a knife could be a dangerous tool to use. I suppose pointing out everything about safety is something of US. In Europe if you don't know how to use a knife then you probably figured it out by yourself. In the US you don't. On the contrary, you go and hurt yourself and then you sue people for your own fumbling mistakes?

So now I have my proportional divider and I will start trying to use it!