Know the Skeleton [feedly]

Know the Skeleton
// Gurney Journey

Edward Poynter (1836-1919) of the Royal Academy

If you study the skeleton well enough to draw it from any angle, it will give your figure drawing much more authority. The study by Poynter shows him locating the two bony landmarks of the elbow visible here: the lateral epicondyle of the humerus (the bump on the left) and the olecranon process of the ulna (the elbow bump facing us).

In this Russian figure drawing book, the anatomy is well understood from the inside out. It looks dynamic because the artist has enough of a knowledge to simplify to essentials.

I hasten to add that my own knowledge of the skeleton is pretty basic compared to some of my colleagues who have really made a study of it.

When I need answers, here are some of the places I turn:
Books: Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist
Figure Drawing for All It's Worth
Model Skeletons:
33" high model skeleton

Life Size Human Skeleton Model

I use a Revell plastic model that's only a foot tall, which dangles from my studio wall. A model skeleton should be rigged so that you can hold it in any pose to echo what the model is doing. Every art school should have a model skeleton in the figure drawing room.

Thanks, Rob Nonstop

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Homework Due 2/25

Copy These three drawings in your sketchbook.
They are all great examples of the underlying forms that a figure can be built out of as well as a way of understanding the facets of a figures masses and how the edges of light could be realized on such stark forms. Keep it simple, loose light. This should be an investigation into an artist's thought process and a mental/visual library strengthener more that cute little drawings. (images by Cambiaso and Hogarth)

Sorry that I couldn't figure out a way to get the picture links to work.

https://warosu.org/data/ic/img/0014/48/1368470119932.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx4zPeCEXNLok9K1wDDrmCo6rdFOOivGHhwkCoJgbaVuYAay3hKrZ5UYPnhOJl3QndFNoZtMSi29E6o6MmNGYH8OLjZGpLpX6VDr_v-mf1-R24MLO2NRs4oNOiI_p6OdUh6lJA0M4LaRo/s1600/1-P1030471.JPG

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAeSO-JoB352jIiMErVEc1fYNiSjRB7EB9gVscdmJi5FK7PWGtF0u2aAE6gkAuFYfTp3GKMQHBh_206AUjzdYwV4heYmxecvg41QQSpKWaR9UWG6AQhQNFs8c5-qZ9pBT19paTcMABtaA/s1600/Dynamic+Figure+Drawing+-+Burne+Hogarth-4.jpg

kevinwada: theg33k: So, ZeroWave, the next HoodieRipper novel,... [feedly]

kevinwada: theg33k: So, ZeroWave, the next HoodieRipper novel,...
// space in text

kevinwada:

theg33k:

So, ZeroWave, the next HoodieRipper novel, has a cover artist lined up and it's Kevin Wada!

Oh, BTW, did I mention that the next HoodieRipper book is almost done? And that it's slated to be released in June, 2014? And that the amazingly talented Kevin Wada is going to be doing the cover? (Wait, I'm pretty sure I mentioned that part. Did I mention I'm bad with press releases and announcements? No? Well, yeah.)

If you've ever wondered how a love of both crust punk and K-pop could exist comfortably in the same person (let alone universe), ZeroWave will give you your answer. And if you're wondering what other things the book will contain, here's an incomplete list: more punks, more drinking, more geekiness, more queerness, more making out, more sex, more kink, more singing, and more choreographed dancing. Plus all the romance and love you expect from a HoodieRipper novel.

Anyway, I encourage you to appreciate the pictures above and get stoked about the cover art Kevin Wada is going to make, because I'm sure as hell stoked about it already.

Hey hey hey ;)

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Eye Candy for Today: Giovanni Boltraffio portrait [feedly]

Eye Candy for Today: Giovanni Boltraffio portrait
// lines and colors :: a blog about drawing, painting, illustration, comics, concept art and other visual arts

Portrait of a boy as saint Sebastian, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio

Though the subject of this portrait by Giovanni Boltraffio may look feminine at first glance, the experts assure us by the title that it is, in fact, a boy.

It might be pointed out, however, that the experts also attributed the painting to Leonardo da Vinci for a time, before reassigning it to Boltraffio, a skilled member of Leonardo's studio.

Personally, if I may be so bold, I would doubt an attribution to Leonardo simply because — to my eye — the anatomy of the head is not quite correct. Specifically the eye to our right does not seem to have the correct relationship to the turn of the head. I'm not an expert, of course, but I've noticed this as a weak point in a number paintings and drawings, particularly from the Middle Ages to the Early Renaissance. This is something that Leonardo never gets wrong. He literally understood human anatomy from the inside out.

See my earlier post here on Lines and Colors in which I flip the Mona Lisa from left to right.

Link below for Boltraffio's portrait is to the Google Art Project; the original is in the the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. There is a high-resolution downloadable version on Wikimedia Commons.

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Artist's Lay Figure [feedly]

Artist's Lay Figure
// Gurney Journey

There's something sweet and vulnerable about this artist's lay figure from France circa 1860-1880.

It's life-size, made of wood and metal, with a painted papier-mâché head. Note the curvature of the femurs, the jointed fingers, and the pronating forearms, all with adjustable tensioners in the joints. I'm not sure why the rib cage seems inadequate. 

In order to serve its purpose as a clothing model for painters, I'm supposing that the musculature would have been bulked out in muslin and cotton batting.

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Read the four-part series on Artist's Lay Figures

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Tissot’s Kathleen Newton [feedly]

Tissot's Kathleen Newton
// lines and colors :: a blog about drawing, painting, illustration, comics, concept art and other visual arts

In 1875, French painter and printmaker James Jacques-Joseph Tissot met divorcee Kathleen Newton, and fell for her head-over-brushes.

They had a scant seven years together before he was devastated by her death from tuberculosis in 1882.

During that time, which Tissot described as the happiest in his life, he painted and drew Newton and her children numerous times.

There is a good selection of Tissot's paintings, arranged chronologically, on Wikipaintings. Those in which Newton appears begin around the middle of page 2.

For more, see my previous Lines and Colors posts on James Jacques-Joseph Tissot, linked below.

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Gallery of the Golden Age, Amsterdam [feedly]

Gallery of the Golden Age, Amsterdam
// lines and colors :: a blog about drawing, painting, illustration, comics, concept art and other visual arts

Art museums are like icebergs, in that only a small part of their collection is visible at any given time. It's always a plus when museums manage to display normally unseen works in different venues.

Three museums in Amsterdam, the Rijskmuseum, the Amsterdam Museum and the Hermitage Amsterdam, are launching a joint long-term exhibit, called "Gallery of the Golden Age", in which seldom-seen large scale works from the first two museums will be exhibited in display space available in the latter.

There is an article on nrc.nl that offers zoomable images of some of these large-scale group portraits, described as being in the same tradition as Rembrandt's famous Night Watch (The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq). The zooming features take a bit of time to load, and the text is in Dutch, but you can use a little patience and Google Translate, respectively.

There is an article in English on the Amsterdam Museum site for more on these works and others.

You can also search the collections of the Amsterdam Museum and the Rijksmuseum.

(Images above: Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy, Govert Flinck, Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy and Thomas de Keyser, Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy)

[Suggestion courtesy of Aelle Ayres]

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Sketch Away: Our Free eBook of Pencil Drawing Lessons [feedly]

Sketch Away: Our Free eBook of Pencil Drawing Lessons
// Artist Daily

The drama of this charcoal and pencil drawing by Lilian Wescott Hale is in the bold contrast of value of the figure's skin, dress, and hair.

I love all kinds of art: super complicated installations, amazing marble sculptures, and virtuosic canvases filled with color and form. But when it comes down to it, I'm a simple woman at heart, and the art that moves me the most is a pure and simple pencil drawing on paper.

Maybe it sounds strange, but I think pencil drawings are the closest art form to real life. A pencil portrait that a person draws of loved ones is a memento that is kept and cherished forever. I still have some of my earliest clumsy beginner pencil sketches that I did all the way back in sixth grade. I look at them and trace the lines with my fingers and it is like being transported back in time. And the artists whom I respect so much? I've never understood their work as deeply as when I look at their drawings.

	Tiepolo made dramatic use of the core shadow, where light borders dark, and made sure that the reflected light was nowhere near as bright as any of the halftones on the figure.

But pencil drawing, as we all know, can be deceptively simple. Pencil drawing—for beginners, right? That isn't true at all. Drawing pencil portraits or figure sketches means really understanding and utilizing lights and darks in and around your subject matter, and contending with light and shadow, planes and values, halftones, and so much more.

It is a lot to cover, which is why I'm thrilled with our free eBook: Free Pencil Drawing Lessons: 27 Ways to Use Values to Create Dramatic Pencil Drawings & Create Powerful Lines. It cuts to the heart of what makes a pencil drawing great, and it helped me learn the essential strategies that underline all advanced pencil drawing instruction. I couldn't ask for more.

Artists and instructors Dan Gheno and Kenneth Procter reaches for examples of amazing drawings, past and present, to illustrate what every draftsman should know—how to turn a ho-hum drawing into something memorable. So I wish you good luck and many great drawings in your future with our free pencil drawing lessons. Download Free Pencil Drawing Lessons: 27 Ways to Use Values to Create Dramatic Pencil Drawings & Create Powerful Lines now. Enjoy!

P.S. If you have a friend or loved one who is getting back into art and might love to share in the fun, send them this link so they can download their own copy of Free Pencil Drawing Lessons.

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Homework Due 2/18

Studies of features, eyes, nose, ears, mouth etc.

2 pages: 6+per page. You may use any reference material available to you.

1 page of more studies including some from observation.

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	Life Hacks (@TipsForYouDaily)
2/12/14, 1:42 AM An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it

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Self-portraits 11 [feedly]

Self-portraits 11
// lines and colors :: a blog about drawing, painting, illustration, comics, concept art and other visual arts

More historic "selfies" in paint and chalk .

(images above: Gustave Caillebotte, Mary Cassatt, Henri Fantin-Latour, Simon Bening, Berthe Morisot, Gilbert Stuart, Alice Pike Barney, Edvard Munch)

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Homework Due Tues 2/11

Self portraits

3 full page self portraits. Use a reflection, not a photo.

Extra credit: portraits of friends or family from observation.

Enjoy the Snow.
Go draw it it's not something you get everyday around here.

Tweet from Life Hacks (@TipsForYouDaily)

	Life Hacks (@TipsForYouDaily)
2/5/14, 11:35 PM When facing difficult tasks act as if it's impossible for you to fail. Your attitude and thought process will heavily influence your actions

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