Human Figure Drawing

Faculty                                          : Faculty of education

Department                                   : Department of visual arts design and Technology

Name of the Course or Module    : Human Figure Drawing V

Academic Program                       :

Name of the Lecturer                    : Mwijuka Julius – (PhD Cand)

                                                             

MODULE DESCRIPTION

This introduces students to elements and principles of art and explains their significance in regard to human figure drawing. It further shows how mastery of human figure drawing lays a firm foundation for other forms of art.

MODULE OBJECTIVES

• Enable students acquire knowledge on human figure as a living organism.
• Help students learn major techniques in human figure drawing.
• Depict light and shadows in terms of contrast.
• To enable students learn human figure as foundation of all disciplines of art and design.

 COURSE OUTCOMES

• Learners will be able to explore the language of human figure drawing as a means of artistic expression.
• It will help to evoke student’s analytical powers as they observe critically the human body.

·         Learners will be able to adapt different styles of formulating the human body by using lines, tone etc and by drawing from observation

DETAILED COURSE STRUCTURE

1. Human Figure drawing                                                                                                                                                           

1.1 Definition of human figure as a living organism.

1.2 What constitutes a human figure-Bust, Tarsal.

1.3 Aerial and linear perspectives of light and shadows in terms of contrasts

1.4   Reflection and refraction disposition of drapery.

1.5 Fore shortening in Human Figure drawing

2. Application of Elements of art in Human Figure drawing                          

2.1 Tonal variation

2.2 Texture

2.3 Form 

2.4 Shape

3. What to consider in Human Figure drawing                                                    

3.1 Anatomy-Study muscles

3.2 Drapery-Study folds in clothes

3.4 Proportionality-Relationship of one part in relation to the whole part

3.5 Facial expression-study the mood of the person

3.6 Posture-Pose

4. Approaches to human figure drawing                                                               

4.1 The Manikin Figure

4.2 Adding bulk to the Figure

4.3 Adding Perspective to the figure

4.4 Arcs of movement in Perspective

4.5Drawing the manikin from any view point

5. Sketching the figure in action from imagination                                                

5.1 The bone and muscles

5.2 Fore shortening and Lighting

5.3 Block Forms

5.4 How block forms help to develop a sense of Bulk

5.5 Modeling of round forms

6.  Drawing from a model                                                                                         

6.1 Variety in a standing Pose

6.2 Defining form with tone and accent

6.3 Building from the Skelton

6.4 Fast movement

6.5 Physics of light –Light, Half tone and Shadow

Details of each course content

THE APPROACH TO FIGURE DRAWING

As we begin the book, let us take note of the broad field of opportunity afforded the figure draftsman. Starting with the comic or simple line drawings of the newspaper, it extends all the way up through every kind of poster, display, and magazine advertising, through covers and story illustration to the realms of fine art, portraiture, sculpture, and mural decoration.

Figure drawing presents the broadest opportunity from the standpoint of earning of any artistic endeavour Coupled with this fact is the great advantage that all these uses are so interrelated that success in one almost assures success in another. The interrelation of all these uses springs from the fact that all figure drawing is based on the same fundamentals which can be applied no matter what use the work is put to. This brings a further great advantage to the figure man in that he has a constant market if he is capable of good work. The market is constant because his work fits into so many notches in the cycle of buying and selling which must always be present barring financial collapse. To sell one must advertise, to advertise one must have advertising space, to have advertising space there must be attractively illustrated magazines, billboards, and other mediums. So starts the chain of uses of which the artist is an integral part. To top it all, it becomes the most fascinating of any art effort because it offers such endless variety, encompassing so much that it ever remains new and stimulating. Dealing with the human aspects of life it runs the gamut of expression, emotion, gesture, environment, and the interpretation of character. What other fields of effort offer so great a variety for interest and genuine relief from monotony? I speak of this to build within you that confidence that all is well once you arrive at your destination; your real concern is making the journey. Art in its broadest sense is a language, a message that can be expressed better in no other way. It tells us what a product looks like and how we can use it. It describes the clothes and even the manners of other times. In a war poster it incites us to action; in a magazine it makes characters alive and vivid. It projects an idea visually, so that before a brick is laid we may see, before our eyes, the finished building. There was a time when the artist withdrew to a bare attic to live in seclusion for an ideal. For subject, a plate of apples sufficed. Today, however, art has become an integral part of our lives, and the successful artist cannot set himself apart. He must do a certain job, in a definite manner, to a definite purpose, and with a specified date of delivery. Start at once to take a new interest in people. Look for typical characters everywhere. Familiarize yourself with the characteristics and details that distinguish them. What is arrogance in terms of light and shadow, form and color? What lines give frustration and forlorn hope to people? What is the gesture in relation to the emotion? Why is a certain childish face adorable, a certain adult face suspicious and untrustworthy? You must search for the answers to these questions and be able to make them clear to your public. This knowledge will in time become a part of you, but it can come only from observation and understanding. Try to develop the habit of observing your surroundings carefully. Some day you may want to place a figure in a similar atmosphere. You cannot succeed completely with the figure unless you can draw the details of the setting. So

THE MANNIKIN FIGURE

The foregoing has given us a general framework to which we can now add a simplification of the bulk or solid aspect of the figure. It would be both tedious and superfluous if, every time we drew a figure; we went through the whole procedure of figure drawing. The artist will want to make roughs and sketches that can serve as an under structure for pose or action—perhaps to cover with clothing, perhaps to work out a pose that he will finish with a model. We must have some direct and quick way of indicating or setting up an experimental figure — one with which we can tell a story. The figure set up as suggested in the following pages will usually suffice. Properly done, it can always be developed into the more finished drawing. When you are drawing a manikin figure, you need not be greatly concerned with the actual muscles or how they affect the surface. The manikin in drawing is used much as is a "lay" figure, to indicate joints and the general proportion of framework and masses. The manikin serves a double purpose here. I believe that the student will do much better to set up the figure this way and get the "feel of its parts in action than to begin at once with the live model. It will not only serve for rough sketches but will also become an ideal approach to the actual drawing of the figure from life or copy. If you have the frame and masses to begin with, you can later break them down into actual bone and muscle. Then you can more easily grasp the placing and functions of the muscles and what they do to the surface. I am of the opinion that to teach anatomy before proportion—before bulk and mass and action—is to put the cart before the horse. You cannot draw a muscle correctly without a fair estimate of the area it occupies within the figure, without an understanding of why it is there and of how it works. Think of the figure in a plastic sense, or as something with three dimensions. It has weight that must be held up by a framework which is extremely mobile. The fleshy masses or bulk follows the frame. Some of these masses are knit together quite closely and adhere to the bony structure, whereas other masses are full and thick and will be affected in appearance by action. If you have never studied anatomy, you may not know that the muscles fall naturally into groups or chunks attached in certain ways to the frame. We will not treat their physiological detail here, but consider them merely as parts interlocked or wedged together. Hence the human figure looks very much like our mannikin. The thorax, or chest, is egg-shaped and, as far as we are concerned, hollow. Over it is draped a cape of muscle extending across the chest and down the back to the base of the spine. Over the cape, in front, lie the shoulder muscles. The buttocks start halfway around in back, from the hips, and slant downward, ending in rather square creases. A V is formed by the slant above the middle crease. There is actually a V-shaped bone here, wedged between the two pelvic bones that support the spine. The chest is joined to the hips by two masses on either side. In back the calf wedges into the thigh, and in front there is the bulge of the knee. Learn to draw this mannikin as well as you can. You will use it much more often than a careful anatomical rendering. Since it is in proportion in bulk and frame, it may also be treated in perspective. No artist could possibly afford a model for all his rough preliminary work—for layouts and ideas. Yet he cannot intelligently approach his final work without a preliminary draft. If only art directors would base their layouts on such manikin figures, the finished figures would all stand on the same floor, and heads would not run off the page when drawn correctly.

WHAT IS LINE

 The painter dispenses with outline because he can define contours against other masses or build out the form in relief by the use of values. You must understand the difference between contour and line. A piece of wire presents a line. A contour is an edge. That edge may be a sharp limitation to the form (the edges of a cube) or a rounded and disappearing limitation (the contour of a sphere). Many contours pass in front of one another, like the contours of an undulating landscape. Line figure drawing, even as landscape drawing, demands foreshortening in order to produce the effect of solid form. You cannot outline a figure with a bent wire and hope to render its solid aspect. Look for two kinds of lines: the flowing or rhythmic line, weaving it about' the form; and, for the sake of stability and structure, the contrasting straight or angular line. Line can have infinite variety, or it can be intensely monotonous. Even if you start with a bent wire, you need not make it entirely monotonous. You can vary the weight of line. When you are drawing a contour that is near a very light area, you can use a light line or even omit it entirely. When the line represents a contour that is dark and strong, you can give it more weight and vitality. The slightest outline drawing can be inventive and expressive. Take up your pencil and begin to swing it over your paper; then let it down. That is a "free" line, a "rhythmic" line. Now, grasping your pencil lightly between thumb and index finger, draw lightly or delicately. Then bear down as though you really meant it. That is a "variable" line. See if you can draw a straight line and then set down another parallel to it. That is a "studied" line. If you have considered a line as merely a mark, it may be a revelation to you that line alone possesses so much variation that you can worry over it for the rest of your days. Remember that line is something to turn to when your drawings are dull. You can start expressing your individuality with the kinds of line you draw. Now to the figure. What is the height-to-width relationship of an ideal figure? An ideal figure standing straight must fit within a certain rectangle. What is that rectangle? See drawing, page 26. The simplest and most convenient unit for measuring the figure is the head. A normal person will fall short of our ideal by half a headhe will measure only seven and a half heads instead of eight. You need not take eight heads as an absolute measure. Your ideal man may have any proportions you wish, but he is usually made tall. On pages 26 to 29 you will find various proportions in head units. Note that at any time you can vary your proportions to suit the particular problem. Study these carefully and draw them, two or three times, for you will use them, consciously or not, every time you set up a figure. Some artists prefer the legs even a little longer than shown. But, if the foot is shown tipped down in perspective, it will add considerable length and be about right. It is remarkable that most beginners' work looks alike. Analysing it, I have found certain characteristics that should be mentioned here. I suggest that you compare this list with your own work to see if you can locate some of the characteristics for improvement.

 1. Consistently gray throughout. What to do: First get a soft pencil that will make a good black. Pick out the blacks in your subject and state them strongly. By contrast, leave areas of white where subject is white or very light. Avoid putting overstated grays in light areas. Do not surround things that are light with heavy lines. BEGINNERS' WORK

2. An overabundance of small fuzzy line. Do not "pet" in your line, draw it cleanly with long sweep. Do not shade with a multitude of little "pecky" strokes. Use the side of the lead with the pencil laid almost flat for your modeling and shadows.

3. Features misplaced in a head. Learn what the construction lines of the head are and how spaced. (See Head Drawing.) Build the features into the correct spaces.

 4. Rubbed and dirty, usually in a roll. Spray with fixative. If on thin paper, mount on heavier stock. Try never to break the surface of your paper. This is very bad. If you have done so, start over. Keep your drawings flat. Keep untouched areas scrupulously clean with a kneaded eraser.

 5. Too many mediums in same picture. Make your subject in one medium. Do not combine wax crayons with pencil, or pastel with something else. Make it all pencil, all crayon, all pastel, all water color, or all pen and ink. It gives a certain consistency. Later on you may combine different mediums effectively but do not start that way.

 6. The tendency to use tinted papers. A black and white drawing looks better on white paper than anything else. If you have to use tinted paper, then work in a color that is harmonious. For instance a brown or red conté crayon on a tan or cream paper. It is better to put your color on white for clarity. 7. Copies of movie stars. This gets intensely monotonous to anyone inspecting a beginner's work. The heads are usually badly lighted from a drawing standpoint. Take a head that is not well known. 8. Bad arrangement. If you are doing a vignetted head, plan interesting and attractive shapes. Don't run over to the edge of the paper unless whole space is to be squared off.

 9. Highlights in chalk. It takes a very skillful artist to do this successfully.

 10. Uninteresting subjects. Just a costume does not make a picture. Every picture should have some interest if possible other than a technical demonstration. Heads should portray character, or expression. Other subjects should have mood or action or sentiment to make it interesting. Water color is perhaps the most tricky medium of all. Yet most beginners take to it. Water color to be effective should be broad in treatment, with large loose washes, and not too finicky. If you find yourself stippling and pecking you can be pretty sure it will not be liked. Water color should have a feeling of the "accidental" or color that has done something of its own and dried that way. Lovely effects are obtained by dampening an area first and then flowing the color into the wet area. Use a real water color paper or board, for it can get very messy on a soft and very absorbent paper. The less you have to go over what you have once put down, the better. Generally water-colorists prefer not to leave a lot of pencil, especially dark or shaded pencil showing through. Some watercolorists work by washing in a general tone, -scrubbing out the lights with a soft sponge or brush, and washing in the halftones and darks over the original tone. If you are unable to handle water color in any other way than by pecking in little strokes, I would suggest you try pastel which can be spread and rubbed at will. Oil paint has the advantage that it stays wet long enough to manoeuvre the color as you wish

FORESHORTENING AND LIGHTING Let us start, then, with the form in the simplest possible terms. By drawing block forms we cut out the extreme subtleties of halftone. Continuing a plane as a single tone on a surface as long as we can before turning it in another direction is simplification, or massing. Actually the figure is very rounded. But rounded surfaces produce such a delicate gradation of light and shadow that it is difficult to approach without a simplification and massing of these tones. Strangely enough, the simplification is a good deal better in the end than the exact photographic and literal interpretation. It is somewhat like trying to paint a tree by painting every leaf instead of massing the foliage into its big forms and working for bulk rather than intricate detail. After we have mastered the larger plane, we can soften it at its edges to mold it into the more rounded form, while retaining all we can of the bigness of conception. Or, we can start with a big block, as the sculptor would start with a block of stone or marble. We hew away the excess and block in the general mass that we want. We then subdivide the big, straight planes into smaller ones until the rounded effect has been produced. It is like going around a circle with a series of short, straight lines. You may question why we do not at once proceed to the finished, smooth, and round form. The answer is that in a drawing or painting, something of the individual procedure and structural quality should remain. When it is too much smoothed down and polished, it becomes entirely factual. The camera can do that. In a drawing, however, "finish" is not necessarily art. It is the interpretation and process of individual conception that is art and that has value. If you include all the literal facts and actualities, the result will be boring. It is your selection of relevant facts that will create interest. A sweeping conception carries with it vitality, purpose, and conviction. The more detailed and involved we get, the less forceful and powerful is our message. We can take a compass and draw a circle perfectly, but we have left no trace of ourselves in what we have set down. It is the big form that does the job—not the little and the exact On pages 70 and 71 I have tried to give an inkling of what I mean. Here the surface is conceived of as having mass and bulk. The effect is sculptural. It is looking at our mannikin a little differently. If we are to compose the mannikin of simplified blocks, how shall we shape those blocks? Your way is as good as mine. Shape them any way you will to arrive at a massed or bulk effect. This is the real approach to "solidity" in your work: actually thinking of the mass, bulk, and weight of it. With this approach, we take the art-store wooden mannikin and use it as a basis for setting up a figure (page 72). We go a step further with the mannikin on page 73 and attempt to eliminate the stiffness of the jointed parts, still thinking though in terms of masses. Retaining these terms we take solids (page 74) and tip them, remembering at all times what each section of the mass would be and where it belongs in relation to the whole. We must depend chiefly upon line to render the form, or that part of it which goes back into space, as seen by the eye of the observer. This is foreshortening. Actual measurement of length cannot be made, since viewing the form from one point is like looking at a gun barrel aimed directly at you. We must think of the contours and form as sections lined up one behind the other. An outline is rarely sufficient, however, to represent the receding sections; most often halftone and shadow are needed as well, as shown on page 75. Pages 76 and 77 are an interpretation of the rounded figure flattened into planes that go a step further than our simplest block forms. On pages 78 and 79 we place the simplified form of the head under various kinds of lighting.