Figure Drawing: step by step figure drawing

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Learn To draw at home in your spare time - Be an Artist, Enjoy a Pleasant, Profitable Career

I love the optimism and promise of these old ads from the 40s and 50s. They fit right in with the promise of X-ray vision from the ads in the pulp magazines of the time and the promise of flying cars by 2010.

This one for the Washington School of Art reads:

Earn Good Money, Be Your Own Boss, Enjoy Pleasant Work, Own Your Own Home and Car
Learn To Draw at home in your spare time
Be an Artist, Enjoy a Pleasant, Profitable Career
Trained Artists are capable of Earning $65, $80, $100 and more per week
Draw Your Way to Happiness.
Only WSA Offers You This Proven Step-by-Step Method Famous Since 1914.
Commercial Art, Cartooning, Design - All in One Practical Course.
We will prepare you for a pleasant , profitable Art career at home in your spare time as we have done for thousands of others. Our experience proves that anyone interested in Art has some Art ability. We will develop your ability and guide you from the beginning through our interesting, well illustrated modern home study course. No previous Art experience necessary. WSA instructions are clear, complee and fully illustrated - easy to understand. They will prepare you for the many Art positions available to trained Artists in Advertising, Newspapers, Magazines, Department Stores, Art Studios, Television, Printing, Engraving, etc. Remember Success can follow only sound training.

X-ray Vision Ad from the Rembrant Company, Painting by Keith Weesner from an exhibit at the M Modern Gallery in Palm Springs, another link to Keith Weesner's work

Here's another ad from the same school:

Learn Drawing, Cartooning, Lettering at home in your spare time

Be An Artist - Earn extra money - plan your own career

You don't need previous art training. You don't have to travel to a distant school. You don't have to risk a big sum of money. WSA now offers you its famous, complete, and modern home study course in Commercial Art, Designing and Cartooning - the same high calibre instruction that had started thousands on their way to profitable careers in art.

Washington School of Art, Art Course in Drawings, Cartooning, Watercolors, Oil Paintings, and Letterings; 4 Volumes, consisting of 32 Lessons

Washington School of Art individual lessons at Abebooks.com.

Do You Like Art - Draw for Money - Our Simple Method Proves You Can Learn to Draw at Home in Spare Time.

You can learn Commercial Art, Designing, Illustrating, Cartooning, etc...right at home, in spare time. No Previous art training necessary. Soon you will be your own boss - work at homem pick your working houre. Or earn big money as staff artist for advertising agency, newspaper, magazine, dept. store, etc. Earn while you learn. 22 piece art outfit given with your first lesson. AT NO EXTRA CHARGE. (School est. 1914)

FREE BOOK, "Art for Pleasure and Profit." Describes our methods. Lists opportunities. Tells what our students say. No Obligation. So mail coupon at once.

See other ads at Lou Brooks - Gallery: Be Popular: Learn to Draw in Your Spare Time

and other amazing ads at The Atomic Eye.

Put you Future in Your Own Hands - Be an Artist

Draw for Money - Be an Artist

Other related books:

Life Drawing: A Journey to Self-Expression

Sketching People: Life Drawing Basics

Figure Drawing Workshop

Life Drawing: A Journey to Self-Expression

Your Flying Car Awaits: Robot Butlers, Lunar Vacations, and Other Dead-Wrong Predictions of the Twentieth Century

Flying Cars, Amphibious Vehicles and Other Dual Mode Transports: An Illustrated Worldwide History

The Wonderful Future That Never Was: Flying Cars, Mail Delivery by Parachute, and Other Predictions from the Past

Monday, October 6, 2008

Drawing the Female Figure with Jefferson Machamer

Here are some illustrations from a book called Drawing the Female Figure by Jefferson Machamer. He is particularly skilled at drawing comic proportions of the human body for comics and cartoons.

With easy step by step instructions for drawing the female figure he shows how to draw a figure without over reliance on the knowledge of anatomy and give excellent advice on the absolute must of comic figure drawing. The head must be positioned above the foot that bears the weight, the figure ought to be 8 heads tall, the ratio above and below the hips should be 4 to 5, when walking the arms should swing opposite of the legs, observe perspective and make them pretty a pretty model is funnier than one that is not, don't say "I can't draw", say "I can" and you will.

Jefferson Machamer was born in either 1901 or 1899. He began selling cartoons when he was a teenager. He made his way to New York city and published in the New York Tribune before joining the staff of Judge.

On this page he advises using a reducing glass to make the model more compact and easier to see the proportions and foreshortening.

Get a Reducing Glass at Amazon.com.

He knew how important the figure was to his work. In this book, Laugh and draw with Jefferson Machamer, he writes, "I am stressing the pretty girl model on this and the following pages, because I know joust how important the pretty girl is in comicas. Fact is, I have sold hundreds more comics spotting a pretty girl than not! - For some reason a pretty girl is funnier than a homely one!"

Here he describes his approach to the figure, "In comic art, not too much knowledge of figure construction is needed. Too diligent study of anatomy will carry you beyond comics into illustration or fine art, and we are concerned only with comics, and enough of figure-drawing fundamentals to compel us to stay within the bounds of simplicity."

He was married to Pauline Moore, an actress who made 25 B-movies in the 30s and 40s. Two pictures of her as Eve Cairo in Charlie Chan at Treasure Island.

Some links:

Comicylopedia - Article on Jefferson Machamer.

Fantagraphic Books - Planning to publish a collection of old single panel comics including the work of Jefferson Machamer.