Sunday, March 22, 2009

How to draw a Foot - How to draw an Ankle - How to Draw an Arm



From Milano Italy 2 anatomical drawings by Luigi Mosca.




Anatomy for Artists Painters and Sculptors ebook at Figure-Drawings.com, or a printed book at Lulu.com.

These drawings are similar to ones about muscle structure and muscular action that appear in A Treatise on Muscular Action.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Erich Kuhn - Watercolor Nudes




Weiblicher Akt, 1930

Kniender, um 1930

Weiblicher Akt, 1932






This book teaches the drawing and painting of the nude:
“A selection of nudes by some of history’s most important painters.”—Art Materials Retailer.
Step-by-Step Art School: Nudes

Hans Thoma - Figure Drawing




Zwei stehende Frauenakte - around 1890

Adam und Eva

Zwei Jünglinge am Wasser, 1915

Wikipedia page.

Siesta in Musée d'Orsay.

Works in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.


Die Blauen Bücher, Hans Thoma at Amazon.de.

Hans Thoma, 1839-1924. Initially studied at the Karlsruhe Academy, then went to Paris and studied with Courbet. When he returned he initially worked in Munich, the Frankfort am Main and finally back to Karlsruhe. This book publishes his most beautiful and important paintings. The author of the introduction, Jan Under (1908-1993) was, until his retirement in 1973 director of the Staatliche Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe and one of the best experts on Thoma. The most significant public collections of his paintings can be found today in Karlsruhe, Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin, Bremen and Stuttgart. There are also many paintings still in private hands.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

How to Use Color




The Theory and Practice of Color by Bonnie E. Snow and Hugo B. Froehlich is available as an ebook st Figure-Drawings.com.

It was published in 1918 and included actual paint chips to illustrate the color wheel providing an unusually accurate depiction of colors for the student to learn from. The charts include the primary colors, the binary or secondary colors, tints which is the addition of white, shades, complimentary colors and shades made by the addition of black or gray, primary colors, binary colors and hues, colors in full intensity and grayed colors, colors in one-half and one-fourth intensities, analogous color schemes and complimentary color schemes.

I recently came across an Arabic Language web page which teaches the use of color using illustrations from my site. Hwaity.com - The colors and how to use them. Here is an attempt at a translation of the site:

"Interest in the phenomenon of healthy color, and the person who loves color coordination and follow up at his home and his office and its surroundings, or the practical life in general, is a human being no doubt with lot of interest, culture and organization.

There is what is known as the wheel of color shown under the form above, within the wheel of color three colors of equal distance from each other form a triangle of color, the triangle produces harmony in all colors.


Often consistent with the constituent colors of the tricolor with each other. And the primary colors in the colors red, yellow and blue colors of the triangle. The secondary colors green, orange and purple are each a mixture of primary colors. These colors are of also the same distance apart as the primary colors. The color is a medium-color mix of primary and secondary another. In between each primary and secondary color is a third color which is a mixture of the two. It is called the tertiary color.

A technical reading of the colors and it is known for example, the rules of color or the color of fire is always dangerous red is the color of heat and the opposite of a cold, dark blue."

Books by Bonnie E. Snow and Hugo B. Froehlich:

The Theory and Practice of Color

A Course Of Study In Art: For The First Five Years In School (1904)

A hundred things a girl can make,

Other books on color at Amazon.com.

Color Mixing Bible: All You'll Ever Need to Know about Mixing Pigments in Oil, Acrylic, Watercolor, Gouache, Soft Pastel, Pencil, and Ink

Color Mixing Recipes

Color Mixing Recipes for Portraits: More than 500 Color Combinations for skin, eyes, lips & hair



Link to another color wheel at the syllabus for a Stanford University Graphics Course.

Another link to the same image with some notes on the author Philipp Otto Runge.

The History of Colour Systems at BibliOdyssey.

Farben-Kugel; oder, Construction des Verhältnisses aller Mischungen der Farben zu einander, und ihrer vollständigen Affinität, mit angehängtem Versuch einer Ableitung der Harmonie in den Zusammenstellungen der Farben. Nebst einer Abhandlung über die Bedeutung der Farben in der Natur, von Heinrik Steffens - The book at the Internet Archives.

More images of color systems.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Artistic Costume Designing - Figure Drawing for Fashion Design



Artistic Costume Designing was written by Louis Lipson in 1940 and revised in 1941. Mr. Lipson was the founder and director of Lipson's School of Costume Designing in Los Angeles. It is designed as a home study course, similar to many drawing courses that were popular at the time.


Not much more information is available about him but the book proves that he was well versed in costume design, he knew materials, he knew drawing and he knew the tricks of the trade.



He was also sympathetic to the aspiring student, here are a few of his notes from the introduction:

"This book is compiled for that purpose to to fulfill the desires of those who are unable to come to school or cannot afford to spend two or three years, or even one year, paying tuition. Also, some have to work for a living, and have no time to spend in travelling many miles to and from school in order to carry out their plans.

The Home Study can be of service in leading many successful men and women, as well as helping others to decide what they would like best to do in the field of Costume Designing.



Certain people have a gift for originality, but do not know how to use their ideas by putting them on paper. To have ideas and not be able to materialize them can be likened to a rushing mountain stream; potentialities unharnessed, and therefore of no practical use. Many successful people, doing the work they love, have arrived at that success by developing their latent talents This book gives each and every boy and girl, man and woman the opportunity to discover and develop hidden potential talent."


These last illustrations are from a different book by Mr. Lipson about fashion illustration.

















9 Heads: A Guide to Drawing Fashion





A Manual on Figure Drawing and Fashion Designing


Here is another book available at Amazon.com Lipson's textbook of practical costume designing: Create with confidence.

Other books at Amazon.com:

Fashion Illustration by Fashion Designers

Fashion Illustration for Designers (2nd Edition)






French Fashion Illustrations of the Twenties: 634 Cuts from La Vie Parisienne (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)



Character Costume Figure Drawing: Step-by-Step Drawing Methods for Theatre Costume Designers



Project Runway Fashion and Figure Drawing Set

100 Years of Fashion Illustration100 Years of Fashion Illustration
Big Book of Fashion Illustration: A Sourcebook of Contemporary Illustration (New Illustration Series)Big Book of Fashion Illustration: A Sourcebook of Contemporary Illustration 
Contemporary Fashion Illustration TechniquesContemporary Fashion Illustration Techniques
Essential Fashion Illustration: Poses (Essential Fashion Illustrations:)Essential Fashion Illustration: Poses (Essential Fashion Illustrations:)(New Illustration Series)
Fashion Illustration TodayFashion Illustration Today

New Fashion Figure Templates: Over 250 TemplatesNew Fashion Figure Templates: Over 250 Templates

Jack Richeson Signature Manikin- 12 Inch Wooden FemaleJack Richeson Signature Manikin- 12 Inch Wooden Female

Related e-book
A Guide to Better Figure Drawing by Cecile Hardy
Line of Action - Drawing from the Model - Creatively
Clothing the Figure Drawing
The Glamour Girl