Showing posts with label drawing the figure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drawing the figure. Show all posts

Thursday, December 16, 2010

How to Draw a Volume Study of the Human Figure - Life Drawing

A volume study of the human figure is used in life drawing or figure drawing to help see the forms of the figure. The figure is broken down into geometrical components to help determine the posture and action of the figure. The shapes are based on the common geometrical shapes, and positioned according to the perspective of the figure. The sketch above is based on a figure from G.M. Ellwood and F.R.Yerbury's Studies of the Human Figure. The model is the same Dorothy Lees who modeled for Adolphe Armand Braun's Hieroglyphic or Greek Method of Life Drawing.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Expressive Figure Drawing by Bill Buchman

Expressive Figure Drawing: New Materials, Concepts, and Techniques A new book about life drawing can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com and goes on sale on December 14th. Expressive Figure Drawing by Bill Buchman shows how drawing the figure is something that is both fun to do and a great way to express yourself. The book is illustrated with his own drawings, notable for their fluid line and expressive qualities.
Acrylic and water soluble crayon

Bill Buchman sent me a review copy of his book, published by Watson-Guptill Publications, which builds on the ideas he developed in his DVD - The Art of Drawing The Figure: Essential Exercises [Interactive DVD].

The book is inspirational for anyone interested in life drawing. He demonstrates through examples the various techniques of figure drawing starting with large geometric shapes, shapes as mass, shadows and highlights and contour lines. He also discusses negative space, and seeing the figure as a series of directional planes and explains and demonstrates all of the techniques in a way that encourages you to get out your drawing materials and get started.

The pose, the significant contours, a quick freehand sketch of the contour lines.

Black pastel chalk
There is an entire chapter on materials from charcoal, chalk, oil pastels and graphite to ink watercolors, gouache and hybrid media which are pencils or pastels that are water soluble.

Drawing structural shapes
With lots of colorful pictures he demonstrates the varieties of figure drawing, gesture drawing, drawing the mass, drawing a contour line, drawing  lind, drawing a continuous contour line, drawing a structural system, drawing shapes, drawing volumes, cylindrical forms, shadows and mass, highlights and shadows, and drawing with color.

The book is a contemporary lesson similar to Kimon Nicolaides' The Natural Way to Draw.


Mr. Buchman is an artist and educator who studied life drawing with Fletcher Martin and Victor D'Amico. In the 1980s he worked in Paris and has exhibited his work since then in Denmark, Sweden, England and the United States. He is represented internationally by Gallerihuset of Copenhagen.

The inspiration of the book is summed up in this quote "Your drawing shows what you are interested in and the egree of your interest. Be moved by forms and lines of the figure. Let them resonate in your feelings. Take in their moods. Lern to sense and capture the emotional implications and meanings contained in them. When you take pleasure in the figure's lines and forms and emotions, this pleasure will come out of your fingertips as you draw."

You can pre-order it at Amazon.com. Expressive Figure Drawing: New Materials, Concepts, and Techniques.

On remembering Victor D'Amico.(ART TEACHERS I HAVE KNOWN)(In memoriam): An article from: Arts and Activities

Creative Teaching in Art

Amazon.com $50 Gift Card (0109)
Amazon.com $50 Gift Card (0109)

Monday, July 5, 2010

Fifty Figure Drawings - Bridgman Publishers

 

Charles Cagle, Watkins Institute, Nashville, Tennessee, James B. Gould, pupil of Arthur Woelfe, Mechanics Institute, New York.

This book was published in 1927 by Bridgman Publishers and consisted of a selection of fifty figure drawings that were submitted to a jury, presumably for the purposes of publishing this book.

 

A. Kitz pupil of Louis F. Bernecker, Mechanics Institute, New York City,  Edwin Kaufman, Cleveland School of Art, pupil of P. B. Travis.


Charles Chappell and Edund C. Gray, pupils of Kimon Nicholaides, Art Student's League, New York

A reprinted edition  and a book by one of the instructors mentioned are available at Amazon.com:

Fifty Figure Drawings  The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study

Original editions are also available
Fifty Figure Drawings, a Selected Group of the Best Figure Drawings Submitted to the Fifty Best Drawing Jury
Fifty Figure Drawings
Fifty Figure Drawings

Bridgman was a prolific publisher of books about figure drawing. These are Dover reprints

Heads, Features and Faces The Human Machine Bridgman's Life Drawing The Book of a Hundred Hands 


Drawing the Draped Figure Drawing the Female Form One Hundred Figure Drawings

One Hundred Figure Drawings

Samples from Drawing the Female Form are at: Figure-Drawings.com