A trip to the BODIES exhibit/ Anatomical drawings

Gabby Wallace

Collin Kennon

Sarah Bouma

Beverly Turner

Jillian Franzen

A visit to the BODIES exhibit in El Paso offered us the opportunity to draw from the plasticized humans.  Students were asked to develop a balance between finish and unfinish in their drawings and to focus on line-weight and the development of the form through hatching, cross-hatching, and white chalk for highlight areas.

Long Studies using hatching and cross-hatching

Deret Roberts

Sarah Bouma

John Andrews

Gabby Wallace

Katy Stuckel

Sarah Bouma

More Class work

Kris Laumbach's blind contour drawing

Gabby Wallace

Collin Kennon

Katy Stuckel

  

Chris Garcia

Implied movement drawing- Outside assignment #2

Experiment with smudging, smearing, line value and echoing lines to imply movement to the figure or part of the figure in your drawing.  Full range of value and awareness to the weight of line and a variety of edges (lost, soft, hard, broken)  It may be helpful to use both a charcoal pencil and compressed or vine charcoal.  This is your creative work---What do you want the figure in your drawing to express?  What is he/she moving from, toward?    Here are some examples by artist James Drake and Christopher Williams.  

Student Hand Studies

Katy stuckel

Beverly Davis

Chris Garcia

Kayla Krattiger

Cynthia Gutierrez

Gabrielle Wallace

                                                      

Some class drawings

Chris Garcia

Jennifer Murray's 30 min line drawing

Katy Stuckel's "energy drawing"

Beverly Turner

Katy Stuckel

Landy Romero

Jillian Franzen

Collin Kennon

                                              

                                                          Deret Roberts

Kayla Krattiger's gesture page

John Andrews

Sarah Bouma

These drawings reflect current studies of proportion, experimental mark-making, line weight, axis lines, and measuring.

Hand studies--outside assignment #1

Hands can be one of the most challenging aspects of figure drawing and aside from the face, one of the most expressive parts of the body.  To start, find the directional lines of the outside fingers and the angles connecting the tops and knuckle joints of the fingers.  There is often an axis line connecting knuckles that can be helpful in determining finger placement.   You can use the blocking method (shown above left) to define the planes and surfaces of the hands and emphasize the points where the lines change direction.  i.e.: It is helpful to divide the finger into segments (usually cylindrical or rectangular) with each joint ending a shape and often changing the direction of line.  Let the weight of your line give space to the drawing, with darker lines coming forward and lighter lines moving back.  The quality of line can mirror the quality of the skin---Is it rough, bumpy, smooth, soft?  Allow your studies to create a composition that works as a whole, with a variety of hand positions, lights and darks, eraser lines, and searching lines.

Axis lines in the figure

                          

Here are a couple examples of axis lines in gesture drawings. When referring to the back of the body, the spine is the most reliable center line.  From the front view, the central axis line runs from the sternum bone, through the naval, to the center of the pubic bone between the legs. This line often curves, depending on the model's pose. Try to determine the initial attitude of the posture and how the body shows this charge--then emphasize or exaggerate this in the drawing. In gesture drawing there is only time to capture the most important truths!  In the first drawing you can see axis lines running down the spine (S curve)and the back of the legs.  In the third drawing there are horizontal axis lines determining the angle of the hips and shoulder space and one main vertical axis determining the gravity line of the body.