What Shapes Make Up the Human Body for Art

The following article  on drawing the human figure appeared in the May 2009 upshot of The Artist's Magazine, which is available for order as a digital download. Click here to larn more. Bonus: get a free download on how to draw people!

Drawing Dynamic Human Figures

By refining the basic structures into progressively smaller units, you can render the body accurately.

By Robert Barrett

To draw Reclining Effigy (pastel, 22×28), I used geometric shapes, midlines and the principle of drawing through).

The most effective way to simplify drawing the human effigy is to reduce its circuitous forms to fundamental ones. In this article I'll talk over how to use various aspects of geometric shapes, midlines and gestural drawing, equally well equally the principle of drawing through.

Using geometric shapes, midlines and the principle of drawing through helped me render this foreshortened figure accurately.

1. Beginning with the basic structures

The figure is primarily a 3-dimensional object that has volume and occupies space. It's important to recall of the human effigy in terms of fundamental forms, since it's these forms that create the major masses that touch on both the inside gesture and the outside shape of things. The smaller pieces are of import but should be subordinated to the larger ones. When yous suspension the fundamental units into increasingly smaller ones, those units also go essential forms from which you can develop and refine more specific forms.

By reducing the figure to geometric shapes, you lot can create disarming foreshortening. This approach also helps you empathise the big forms and how i builds on elevation of another.

ii. Build on a gesture framework

Equally with whatsoever drawing, construct the figure by roughing in the gestures. A loose gesture sketch will assist you capture the overall essence of the figure. Continue to "flesh out" the effigy by calculation mass and weight via geometric forms (see drawing, contrary folio, far right). It'due south important to go along the figure fluid and gestural; otherwise, you may forget the action of the figure and brand it too stiff or tight. Attempt to feel the action of the pose as you lot develop the solidity of the forms. Remember, the figure is dimensional—it has height, width and depth.

This drawing is an orchestration of sorts, where gesture and structure come together at the same time to build a framework upon which yous tin develop the figure.

3. Move from the known to the unknown

Shapes like spheres, cubes, cylinders and cones tin can help yous sympathize the complicated structures of the effigy because yous can describe them easily. When you understand a known quantity, such as a cube, you lot can more hands understand and estimate an unknown quantity, such as the pelvis.

To construct a modified form of the effigy, sketch the legs, arms and torso basically as cylinders and reduce the caput to a sphere, and suggest the easily and feet with wedge or cube forms. Draw (the forms) through—that is, draw every bit if the torso were transparent.

Practice seeing and understanding how the shapes of the model's form work together. Hither, the model is drawn as if she were transparent. This exercise, known as drawing through, will greatly help your agreement of the figure's dimensional aspects. At present you tin can come across how you can accurately design the body's structure through the apply of simpler forms.

4. Understand the design of the structures

The process of seeing complex structures as simple shapes is critical in agreement the pattern of both elementary and circuitous anatomy. As you become involved in the process of breaking downward complicated structures into simpler ones, you will find that your understanding of the pattern of the structures volition increment dramatically.

5. Refine, define and modify

As the drawing progresses from the initial gesture sketch, refine the head into a sphere and the torso into basic cylinders. Change the artillery and legs from symmetrical cylinders into tapered cylinders. Add a straight line or shaft—a midline—down the eye of an arm or leg to assist ascertain and refine the outer—and more subtle—contours of each respective appendage.

In these drawings, the structure or form of the figure is evident. There'southward a feeling of dimension (above, left) fifty-fifty though the cartoon is done simply in line. Using midlines and the technique of drawing through help create a feeling of weight and depth. Notice how line weight also contributes to the sense of dimension. The drawing (above, right) is more complete and detailed; by shading the forms and adding hair, I made the effigy more than lifelike.

---

Painter, muralist and illustrator Robert Barrett is likewise a professor in the Department of Visual Arts at Brigham Young Academy in Provo, Utah. He'southward a member of the Guild of Illustrators, the Pastel Society of America, the Portrait Club of America and the Salmagundi Gild.

This article is excerpted from his book, Life Drawing: How to Portray the Figure with Accuracy and Expression. © 2008 by Robert Barrett. Used with permission of North Low-cal Books, an imprint of F+W Publications, Inc., 4700 E Galbraith Road, Cincinnati, Ohio, 45236; 800/289-0963. Showtime Edition, $28.99.

This article appeared in the May 2009 issue of The Artist's Magazine, which is available for order as a digital download. Click here to larn more.

---

Gratuitous artistsnetwork.television receiver preview
Click here to spotter a free preview of the video workshop "Draw & Paint Dogs with Pastel Pencils" with Colin Bradley.

---

---

More than Resources FOR ARTISTS

• Watch fine art workshops on demand at ArtistsNetwork. Boob tube
• Online seminars for fine artists
• Instantly download fine art magazines, books, videos & more than
• Sign upward for your Artist's Network email newsletter & receive a Gratis ebook

sanchezfrum1953.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.artistsnetwork.com/art-mediums/drawing/drawing-dynamic-human-figures/

Share this post