Paint Draw Paint, Learn to Draw

Drawing Basics: Simplified Skeleton Drawing

2013-04-04T08:23:00.000-07:00

Here is something to help you practice setting up a figure drawing. The following exercise is a way to help simplify the process of drawing a human figure.

Why would we simplify the human figure when drawing? There are many reasons to do this. One reason may be the need to draw quickly. For example, you may only have a minute or two to draw before the model changes poses so the need to simplify becomes necessary.

Another reason is that those who are new to drawing the figure find it very difficult to do. The human figure is a complex collection of forms and can it feel a bit overwhelming at times trying to draw this complexity. One solution to this is to pick and choose the elements that you are going to work on first in order to create a process that allows you to work on the drawing one step at a time.

There are several ways to organize and divide the process into simple steps. I would say that there are as many approaches to the process of drawing as there are artists. How you choose to organize your drawing process is up to you. Just remember that looking for ways to simplify the drawing in order to focus on one or two things at a time will help you troubleshoot problems and make drawing the human figure easier.

In the steps I show below I look for the skeleton within the figure, then drawn it simplistically to work out the gesture and the relative sizes of the forms or parts of the body.

Let's begin. To see the rest of the post click on the read more link below.

Anatomy Basics: The chest muscle

2013-01-28T04:00:00.000-08:00

Most artists that draw the figure are familiar with drawing the chest muscles as they fit on the torso. Not everybody is as familiar with how these muscles connect to the arms. This is a critical component to understanding how the shapes of the arms and torso come together as well as how the muscle moves the arms.

Today, we are going to look at how the chest muscle connects to the skeleton and what kind of shapes these muscles make.

Drawing Basics: Drawing the head, a step by step of the constructive method

2012-11-26T07:54:00.000-08:00

This time around I thought I'd demonstrate how to draw a head by building up to the features from basic shapes and forms in a step by step approach.

The method I demonstrate below is a combination of techniques I have learned over the years. These are fairly universal techniques that can be found in many resources and are taught at most schools that offer foundational art instruction.

Here, I want to show how to construct the head as we draw rather than just mimicking the features that we see. This will give us a better understanding of the forms of the head and face and allow us to make up the head in different postions without requiring us to look at a reference every time we need to draw the head.

Let's begin.

Drawing Basics: Contrapposto pose, how the body adjusts to balance

2012-10-15T08:51:00.001-07:00

This is a brief post to help those who struggle to get the figure in their drawings to feel like it has weight and is not just floating on the page.

The body is always adjusting to balance itself and one of the ways we can learn to see how the body balances is to study a pose called the contrapposto pose. It is a pose that has been used by artists for a very long time to create a natural stance. It is also a great way to introduce how the body will react to gravity.

Let's take a look.

Anatomy Basics: Just having fun drawing the back

2012-08-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

Charcoal drawing of a back

Every weekend I run a workshop for the students at the school I teach at. Usually, I don't draw during the workshop as I am going around assisting the students. This time, however, the model struck a pose that I found so interesting I that could not resist. So I will pulled out the newsprint pad.

Later after the workshop one of the students was asking me about where all the muscles of his back were in my drawing. I was doing the best I could to explain but not all the lines in my drawing were representing muscle boundaries and interpreting someone else's drawing can be tricky.

So, for him, I took the drawing home and did it again, showing were all the muscles are. If it can benefit one person it can benefit others, so I thought I'd share it with you.

Take a look.

Anatomy Basics:The deltoid

2012-07-23T18:17:00.001-07:00

The shoulder

I promise you this site won't turn into something only about human anatomy for the artist. I will always include other subjects for those interested in drawing and painting in general. However, I am personally interested in the figure and I feel that understanding the anatomy to some proficiency will only improve one's ability to draw the figure. With that in mind, I thought this would be a good area to explore for awhile.

Today, we are going to take a look at the shoulder muscle, to understand the basics of its form and function. Let's take a look.

Anatomy Basics: Skeleton posterior view

2012-07-15T12:43:00.000-07:00

Last but not least, we have the skeleton from the back view or what is called the posterior view. Just like the last two diagrams the bones are color coded to make identification easier.

I have many of the muscles added to these skeleton views, start looking for those articles in the up coming weeks and months. I thought these three diagrams would be important to show prior those articles as most of the muscles are connected to the skeleton and we move at the joints between bones.

Lets look at the posterior view...

Read more »

Anatomy Basics: Skeleton anterior view

2012-07-06T14:14:00.001-07:00

Here is the second in the series on the skeleton charts. This one is of the skeleton from the anterior or front view. Just like the last one the bones are color coded to make identification easier.

This skeleton fits the figure I made for the proportions chart earlier, everything should be accurate in size.

Let's take a look.

Anatomy Basics:Skeleton Lateral view

2012-06-28T21:14:00.000-07:00

I know its been awhile between articles this year. Its because I have been working hard on an anatomy for artists project I decided to do this year. It turns out to be a lot of work but I am enjoying it. Over the next few weeks I will be sharing some this with you, starting with the skeleton.

Select read more to see the lager view of the full skeleton from the side or lateral view.
Read more »

Drawing Basics: How to draw a roof in perspective

2012-05-25T09:07:00.005-07:00

Basic roof in perspective

When teaching students two point perspective I often demonstrate building a simple house or shed to illustrate some of the basic points behind this type of linear perspective. One thing that seems to be difficult for most beginners is to figure out how to get the roof line in perspective. That is what we will be working on today.

Today, you will need to know some of the basics of two point perspective in order to build a basic box. If you need help with this or a refresher click this link: two point perspective.

If you have the basics down and are ready to add a basic roof to your building, lets begin.

Anatomy Basics for Artists:The boxing Muscles or the serratus anterior

2012-05-16T13:21:00.001-07:00

I have been working on a project figuring out better ways to describe the muscles and the actions they help the body perform. I am doing this in order to understand the human form in ways that allow me to better illustrate the figure more accurately and have more of a range to express what I want to express. It is no easy, task that is for sure. Here is a sample of what I have been working on.

Today we will look at the muscle the serratus anterior. This is a popular one to draw, but is not always clearly visible on everyone. Below I break it down into two subjects, where the muscle is connected to the skeleton and how it move the arm.

Let;s take a look,

Drawing the structure in line

2012-04-01T17:52:00.000-07:00

This one is just for fun. It is not really a lesson as I just dug up some past figure drawings to show you a couple of examples how I begin a drawing. Learning to draw in line to establish the structural elements of the drawing before including the value or color information is a great way to work out proportions and shape concerns first.

Enjoy.

Drawing Basics: Constructing a figure with simple shapes

2012-03-15T10:40:00.002-07:00

The subjects to learn to draw the figure.

This is a drawing for a project I did back sometime around the beginning of the year. I designed the drawing to illustrate some of the important areas one needs to study in order to successfully draw the figure, such as proportion, gesture, shape construction, and anatomy. I thought we could use drawing to look one of those elements, and learn more about using shape construction to draw the human form.

One way to draw a figure is to build the forms up using simple basic shapes as a starting point. This process allows the artist to work on one thing at a time without overwhelming himself with too much information to convey at once.

Today, we will break the process of drawing the figure into simple steps, showing how to build up from simple shapes into more a complex human form.

Let's begin.

Drawing Basics: How to draw a nose

2012-02-22T09:42:00.001-08:00

I recently received a request for a post about how to draw the nose. I thought it was a good idea to write about and I began putting something together. When thinking about where to begin, it occurred to me that the nose is a great example to use in showing how constructing the forms and shapes of the human body is a better way to draw the figure than just copying what we see. So, I thought we'd start there as we learn to draw the nose.

Today, we are going to look at how to draw the nose by starting with constructing a simplified nose out of basic shapes to build the smaller forms on.

Lets take a look.

Anatomy Basics: The finger bones

2012-02-09T11:20:00.000-08:00

As the last in this series on the skeletal anatomy of the hand we are now up to the fingers. This area can be tricky as beginners generally just add the fingers to the top of the body of the hand and have not worked it out to structurally fit to the skeleton.

Today, we will take a look at the finger bones to see how these bones connect the fingers to the hand, allow the fingers to move, and identify the differences between the bones of the fingers and the thumb.

Let's take a look.

Drawing Basics: Drawing the thumb

2012-02-01T22:05:00.000-08:00

Since we looked at the ways the thumb is able to move in the last post, I thought that now is a good time to take a look at how to draw the thumb.

Today, we will look at the hand in basic shapes and forms to learn a simple way to connect the thumb to the body of the hand.

Let's take a look.

Anatomy Basics: Metacarpals and the thumb

2012-01-23T21:22:00.000-08:00

Hand drawing in color pencil

Continuing on with the structures of the hand we are moving onto a new group of bones, the metacarpals, to focus on a few of the movements the thumb.

Thumbs tend be a challenge for many people and understanding the thumb's connection to the hand and how the thumb moves can be helpful in resolving many issues when drawing the hand.

Today, we are going to look at the role that the metacarpals play structurally in the hand and how the lower part of the thumb moves based on the connection the metacarpal makes to the wrist bones.

Let's take a look.

Drawing Basics: Figure proportions, female

2012-01-05T17:29:00.000-08:00

I have been wanting to update the images for my original post on the proportions of the human figure for sometime now and I am finally getting around to doing that. In the process of working on these new images I realized that it might be a good idea to create images for the both the male and female figures individually. Here is the first, listing some of the proportions for the female figure.

Let's begin.

Anatomy Basics: Skeletal Anatomy of the Hand, the wrist bones

2011-12-11T19:19:00.001-08:00

Bones of the hand

I want to focus on the bones in the hand for a bit. This is because I noticed that many of the students I work with struggle with drawing hands and I thought this would be good subject to cover here in order to help out those of you who have the same difficulties.

Even though hands are a challenge to draw, one way to learn to draw hands is to start looking at and thinking of the hands structurally. Understanding the structures that make up the hand allow us to see what kind of shapes these structures will create in the hand and to draw the hand accurately in different positions.

Today, we are going to look at the skeletal structure of the hand to identify the grouping of bones at the wrists and see how they help with the movement of of the hand.

Let's take a look.

Color Basics: Subtractive color

2011-11-07T12:22:00.000-08:00

It is easy to be confused as to why we call the color system we use when painting a subtractive color system. After all, we are adding different colored paints to each other in order to get a desired color and it seems natural to want to think of it as an additive method of creating color. The trick in understanding why it is subtractive is to look at the characteristics of light. In doing this we will understand we are relying on the subtractive qualities of the paint to get our desired color.

Today, we are going to look at how light is affected by the pigments in the paint to better understand the subtractive color system.

Let's begin,

Drawing Basics: The picture plane in 1 point persective

2011-10-20T08:17:00.000-07:00

Dealing with one point perspective has its challenges. It seems simple enough but we can sometimes run into unforeseen problems. This often happens because we miss some of the specifics about the guides of one point perspective. One example is recognizing the relationship between the front planes or front surfaces in a scene and the picture plane. Its a straightforward guideline but if it is missed the drawing will not come together how we would like.

This posts is going to take a look at the picture plane and positioning of the front surfaces in one point perspective respective to the picture plane. We will discuss the principle and show a simple explanation using an exterior scene.

If you would like a refresher on one point perspective visit this link. Otherwise, let's get started.

Anatomy Basics: A couple of online references I like

2011-10-10T12:32:00.000-07:00

If you are looking to improve your understanding of anatomy for drawing the figure, here couple of nice resources to try.

These are sites I have used and have recommended to my students. Take a look.

Drawing Basics: Checkerboard illusion explained

2011-09-17T06:31:00.000-07:00

Checkerboard illusion

One of the best ways to understand how value is perceived is by looking at how it can be used to create illusions.

There is a popular video on youtube showing a pretty cool illusion involving a scene similar to the one you see to the right. The illusion is one where a light tile is moved over a dark one and they turn out to be the same value.

If you haven't see the illusion click on the link below to watch.

Checkerboard illusion video clip

Let's see how it is done.

Beginning Drawing Posts: Just the very basics

2011-09-08T09:28:00.000-07:00

I have put together a small list of links to previous posts from this site to help those who are new to drawing find relevant articles quickly.

This is a list of links prepared for those just starting out and want to learn the basics of charcoal drawing.

Read more »

Painting Basics: Selecting and editing the scene in a plein air landscape

2011-09-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

Plein air, editing a scene

I went plein air painting with a student of mine a couple of weeks ago. After we finished we took a look at each other's work and commented as we usually do. One of the comments for this painting was that the painting looked nothing like the scene in front of me which, of course, was true. I picked the scene because I liked the silhouette shape created by a few of the trees. That shape made by this grouping of the trees was what I wanted to focus on and all the stuff that was unimportant to me in the scene just didn't make it into the painting.

Today, I thought we would look at how to select what is important in a a scene then edit the information to design a composition that we like. I want to show that you do not need to include everything in a scene when painting it.

Let's take a look.