Complete Idiot''''s Guide to Drawing- P30 pdf

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Drawing Animals and People
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The Least You Need to Know
➤ Animals live in a world of action. Seeing and drawing that action and gesture is the
first step in getting the sense of the animal you are looking at.
➤ Proportion and shape build on gesture, adding muscle shape to the direction and
placement of the main limbs.
➤ The form of the animal should be considered. Even a bird’s leg is a three-
dimensional form.
➤ Photographs can supply detail information, but are flattened versions of the real
thing and not as good for practice.
➤ Quick sketches of an uncooperative pet or wild subject can gradually give you
enough information for a more finished portrait.
Chapter 21
The Human
Body and Its
Extremities
In This Chapter
➤ Drawing the human figure
➤ Gesture is all
➤ A feel for body parts
➤ Form and proportion
A drawing of the nude is the most revealing form of artistic expression simply because it is the
most immediate and the most personal.
—Mervyn Levy, The Artist and the Nude, (New York: Clarkson Potter, 1965).
We are fascinated and enticed by the figure, the most single expressive subject for artistic
exploration. When we draw the figure, are we drawing ourselves or all humanity? Perhaps it
doesn’t matter—the figure attracts us, whatever the reason.
Your sketchbook will be your greatest asset in learning to draw from the figure. Constant

sketching is the way to an understanding of the figure and an ability to quickly see and
draw a gesture. The more you draw, the more you will see. Your drawings will quickly gain
grace, proportion, and form. You will be able to use your own creativity, and your work will
be original and unique.
Drawing the Figure
Like the four-footed and winged animals you worked on in Chapter 20, “It’s a Jungle Out
There—So Draw It!,” people move around a lot. Get used to it. Work with the knowledge
that they will move and you won’t be disappointed.
Drawing people is virtually impossible without a working understanding of the nude figure.
Once you do learn it, you may find the shapes and beauty of the figure become your favor-
ite image.
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Getting Some Practice and Help
Classes and informal drawing groups with a model are there for the looking.
Museums and adult education programs are places to check. You can always start a
group, with or without a formal instructor. A model can work with suggestions as
to the type and length of poses favored by the group. Working from the figure in
a comfortable studio setting can add to the intimacy of the poses and the detail
surrounding the model, too.
Use Your Sketchbook
A sketchbook is a visual storehouse, a place to practice, and a fascinating and
sometimes poignant record of life as well.
Capture the posture and gesture of your subject in a few moments. Try for a sense
of character if you can in some of the angles and shapes.
The Gesture of Life
Gesture drawings are a good place to start. The object is to cap-
ture the essence of the pose, which might be quite energetic

as it does not have to be held very long.
In the section following, we’ve provided guidelines for trying
a gesture drawing of your own.
Direction and Gesture
When sketching from a model, arrange yourself so that you
can see easily over your work and have a clear view of the
whole figure. You will need to look back and forth from
model to drawing often and quickly.
1. Allow about three to four minutes for each pose. You
can ask your model ahead of time to change the pose
according to a preestablished schedule.
2. Try to capture:
➤ The line of the spine.
➤ The twist or angle of the spine.
➤ The angle of the head and neck.
➤ The angles of the shoulders and hips (which are
often opposite to each other).
➤ The directions of the arms and legs.
That will keep you plenty busy!
Artist’s Sketchbook
Gesture drawings are drawn
from short poses, no more than
four minutes and often as short
as one minute.
Try Your Hand
Try to mentally experience the
pose yourself, particularly the
more energetic ones. Feel
the tension or off-centeredness,
the weight on one foot, or the

reach or twist as if it were you.
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Thoughts on Quick Action Poses
Instruct the model to change poses at intervals. With each new pose, begin a new drawing,
even if you have not finished. Create a little pressure for yourself. Like a workout, make
yourself stretch with the model. Don’t erase, just draw and draw. If you need to correct,
draw over it and keep going.
If it is possible for you, try to draw in a little indication of form, some roundness in the
limbs. Make the shapes where body parts overlap. Feel the parts of the body yourself as you
draw.
Try to work evenly around the figure as long as you can. Try not to focus on just one spot—
you can lose sight of what you are doing and whether there are still problems to correct.
Use yourself when you run out of models; a mirror or two will give you plenty to work
with.
Quick gesture drawings are great for discovering how the
human body works, and how it looks in motion. Making ges-
ture drawings will help you learn the proportional relationships
of body parts and to follow their natural movement.
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Body Parts and the Whole: Anatomy, You Say?
Anatomy, after all, is under there. Why not have at least a passing acquaintance? Here’s the
quickest anatomy lesson ever written:
➤ The skeletal structure of a figure determines the proportion.
➤ Muscle groups and their relative development are the shapes of the body and limbs, but

the bones are still underneath.
➤ Fat deposits (relax—we all have them) alter the shapes according to how much of it is
where.
➤ Age is another factor in how the body looks. The skeleton loses some of its flexibility
with age, muscles change, how and where fat is retained is different, and the quality of
the skin changes. Yuccck!
It’s all a little clinical, but there it is. You’ll find that your drawings will be much better for
the time you spend understanding the skeleton and muscle arrangement.
The Hip Bone Is Connected to the …
Now that you’ve got those basics, here’s more you should know about anatomy.
➤ The skeleton has 206 bones, held together by ligaments. At the joints, the bones are
covered with a thin layer of cartilage to protect them against wear and tear. There is
connective tissue and fluid to lubricate the joints.
➤ The body is supported by the spine, 33 vertebrae from the skull through the shoulders,
rib cage, and down to the pelvis.
➤ The rib cage forms a barrel-like structure to hold and protect the heart and lungs.
➤ The arms hang from the ball-and-socket joint of the shoulder, and bend and rotate
at the elbow joint and the wrist joint, which in turn allow the complex flexing of the
hand.
➤ The pelvis, a basin-like arrangement at the end of the spine, supports and protects the
intestinal system.
➤ Weight is transferred to the large bones of the legs at the ball-and-socket joint of the
hip, transferred down the leg at the knee joint, and ends in the base formed by the feet.
The Art of Drawing
There are lots of ways to work longer on a pose. Go for tone, shadow, likeness, detail, a shaded
work, a fine line. They are all worth trying. But the most important thing is a good seeing and
beginning drawing. Why spend a half hour or more rendering a drawing that has an inaccurate
base?
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Muscle Is Good
Muscles do the work of moving the skeleton, from large sweeping motions like running to
small subtle movements like smiling or breathing. There are over 600 muscles in the body,
doing a variety of functions. Attached with ligaments to bones at either end, they can con-
tract and become shorter and thicker, or they can stretch and become longer and thinner.
For drawing purposes, we are concerned with the large ones that shape the torso and limbs,
and the complex muscles of the face that create expression, a
kinesic function.
The torso is all the bone and muscles forming the middle of the body, from the shoulders
to the pelvis. Flexing and stretching is possible because of the flexibility of the spine,
which, as the middle-aged among us know, varies tremendously from person to person. The
combinations of twists and turns are amazing, really. The spine even has a double curve
when in a standing position.
The front of the torso is a sheet of muscles, including abdominals, which bend the body
forward, and sacrospinals, the back muscles, which bend it backward. The chest muscles—
pectorals—form the bulk of the chest, and breasts are glandular, with a covering of fat.
The wide range of motion in the arms is a function of the ball-
and-socket joint of the shoulder and the clavicle (collarbone) and
scapula (shoulder bone), which are not tightly attached and move
to allow stretches and reaches.
Muscles in the shoulder section are the pectorals, the chest, the
trapezius, the shoulders, and the latissimus dorsi on the back. The
shoulder muscle is the deltoid. Arm muscles go from the shoulder
to the elbow (biceps on the front and triceps on the back), and
another set go to the wrist.
Legs are shaped by large muscles that support the weight of the
body and move it about. Gluteus maximus, the large muscles of
the buttocks, go over the pelvis to the legs. Thigh muscles (biceps

and rectus femoris) go from the hip to the knee and the calf (gas-
tronemus) and shin muscles go from the knee to the ankle.
The skeletal system:
Familiarity with the
skeleton will inform
your figure drawings
with a knowledge of
what’s under the skin.
Artist’s Sketchbook
Kinesics is the study of body
movements, gestures, and facial
expressions as a means of com-
munication.
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The muscles of the
body: Drape a skeleton
with muscles and you’ve
got a body ready to
move.
Studying muscle move-
ment will inform your
figure studies with a
knowledge of kinesics.
Some Basic Proportions
The Greek physician Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.E.) recognized two body
types:
➤ Phthisic habitus—tall, thin physique

➤ Apoplectic habitus—short, thick physique
But these two body types really don’t even begin to cover the variations
in the human body, and the study of physical anthropology has identi-
fied a wide range of body types. William Sheldon, an anthropologist in
the 1930s, devised a system based on three main types:
➤ Endomorphic—fat
➤ Mesomorphic—muscular
➤ Ectomorphic—bony
Back to the Drawing Board
Note that these are body types,
and are not the same as height.
These types occur in all possible
variations, degrees, or amounts.
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Try drawing the action and position of the figure with the simplest of lines for the spine,
shoulder, hip, and limbs. Add some volume to the body cavity, the shoulders, and the
pelvic area. You can practice a kind of stick figure, or you can draw the body as a series of
proportional ellipses, or you can see it as a group of cylinders and boxes. However you
begin, close seeing and drawing of the muscles should follow. The best practice is … well,
practice.
An awareness of body types helps to see the proportions
of an individual, for better or worse.
Ellipsoids, as opposed to humanoids, and cylinder/box figures are a great way to start adding volume to a
gesture.
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Age and Gender: Some Basic Differences, As If You
Didn’t Know
Body proportion is important to understand. It changes radically from birth to adulthood
and is slightly different between males and females as well.
Body, Age, and Proportion
Did you know that the body can be measured relatively at any age, in heads? That’s right:
an average adult’s height is eight heads, easily divisible in heads at the chin, nipples, navel,
crotch, mid-thigh, knee, and then calf/foot.
Children’s heads are much larger relatively. A baby’s head is about one-quarter of its body,
as are its legs. As a child grows, so do its legs, while the head size decreases relative to the
body and the limbs.
Accurately seeing and
measuring the propor-
tions of a figure from
childhood to puberty to
adulthood is crucial for
getting the look of the
particular age group.
The male nude.
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If you don’t have the opportunity to sketch live nudes, try copying famous male nude
sculptures, such as Michelangelo’s
David.
1. Start with a gesture
sketch to capture the
pose of a female nude.

2. Once you’ve got the
pose, begin to refine
forms and shapes.
3. Use negative space to
further define the pose
and enhance a three-
dimensional effect.