Author: kitaye, Contributing Editor

There are hundreds of variations on the arch, but to me the most elegant is the Gothic arch. A Gothic arch is easily identified by the sharp peak at the top. Gothic arches have traditionally been made of dressed stone, which is stone that has been shaped. More recently, they have been made with brick. Below you can see three different examples of arched doorways. The pictures were provided by Flehmen, and he has several other images available in the reference library. In this article, I will take you through the steps of mapping out and drawing the Gothic arch. Once you have the general shape of the arch, you can proceed to finish the drawing in pencil, ink, or any of the various painting mediums. So pull out that ruler, a few sharp pencils, and a piece of paper; and then we will get started.

Penciling in the general guidelines for the arch is the first step. In this drawing, the arch resides in a wall, so wall guidelines will be needed. Draw the arch as if you are looking straight into it. The arch is placed in the center in this example. Your pencil marks should be much lighter than they appear in the drawing here. I had to make them darker to show up in the scan. Once you have the final shape you can darken the lines as you see fit. To start your drawing, turn your paper to a landscape orientation. Use your ruler to draw a very light line 1/2" from the bottom. This will be the base of your wall and, subsequently, the bottom edge of your arch. In the center of your paper, draw a line from the top edge of the paper to the line for the bottom of the wall. This will be your center line for the arch. The line does not have to be perfectly centered, but for this tutorial it should be close.

Draw another line on each side of the arch's center line. These lines should be equal in distance from the center line. They are the inside edges of your arch opening. The archway is taller than it is wide, so the distance from the center line to the inside edge should not be more than 1/3 of the total height. On a 9" x 12" piece of paper, this would be between 1.5" and 2" from centerline. To the outside of each of these lines, draw a second set of lines. These are the outside edges of your arch. The distance from the inside line to the outside line should be slightly less than half the distance of the center line to the inside line. In the example my inside and outside lines are 3/4" apart.

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