When my kids were very little I taught art to adults at our local adult education centre. When I was teaching a watercolour course, I taught my learners to enlarge an image by using a grid. You draw a grid of matching squares on a photocopy of a reference image and then on your large paper you draw bigger squares on that in pencil and copy into each square what you see on the smaller reference image.
My learners always asked if that was 'cheating'. And personally I don't think it is. Albrecht Durer produced a number of engravings and publications which demonstrated the use of a grid to draw accurately and in proportion as far back as 1500 and to me it is just a quick method of making an image fit a particular canvas or board.
I can draw, but my real joy is painting and printmaking and any method which allows me to get the drawing down on paper or canvas is good enough for me. Because I am limited by time I choose to focus on the painting rather than the drawing!
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