The Torso

The final piece of the series before I finally draw the whole body: the torso. The base of the body, where everything comes back to. Though not the most acknowledged region of the body, it's the most vital one.

Torsos are perhaps the most diverse region of the body among humans, coming in all shapes, sizes, and variations. The general torso for a male is built and muscular, yet not overly buff, and the general torso for a female is slim but curvy. Though these are not the builds most typical people possess, they're most commonly seen in drawings, which is what I'll be using.

I'll be drawing both a female torso, from the shoulders to the pelvis. The main reason I'm drawing a female torso is because the end product, a whole-body sketch, will be of a female, as I just personally find females easier to draw.

Here I'm just starting with a basic outline, specifically the shoulders and general torso area, as well as marking out where the chest ends in order to accurately shade it. Bridgman explains how "the masses of the torse are the chest, the abdomen or pelvis, and between them the epigastrium" (Bridgman 111). These are the three areas that will be concentrated on in the drawing!

I didn't use construction lines in this drawing, as I was rather scatterbrained and just started sketching from the photo. However, if I were to redo this drawing, I'd most definitely try to use construction lines, as I'm sure it would've given me and easier time proportioning the torso.

I added some slight alterations, but you can clearly see how this looks more realistic than just leaving lines on it. The drawing seems simple, but when just sketching (especially when you're learning how to sketch something), Bridgman strongly recommends that it's best to not overcomplicate it, and to gain a strong understanding of the basics before proceeding to add the microscopic details (Bridgman 65).

I didn't pay too much attention to the arms since that isn't our focus, and just tried to get the arms to look vaguely proportional to the torso. Another important tip is that the elbow generally will line up with the belly button, which will be helpful in my next blog post!

Have you ever had a situation where you overcomplicated something? Is it better to start out in slow steps or just dive right in?

Bridgman, George. Constructive Anatomy. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., 2016. Print.

Facial Features

Perhaps the most complex human body part to draw, and my personal weakness: the face. Some unknown aspect about the face makes it extremely difficult for me to draw, and all my faces end up looking unrealistically cartoon-like, unproportional, and 2-dimensional. I aspire to create faces that are realistic and can convey some kind of emotion or feeling to the viewer.

As usual, my medium of usage will be pencil, as it is, to me, the easiest medium to use. For novice artists, it provides good control, and you don't have to worry about selecting the appropriate colors and shades, but only focusing on the values used. Also, pencil is easily erasable, which is a feature I'm certain I'll be using quite thoroughly in this particular drawing. As Bridgman states in his book, when first sketching something that a person is uncertain or uncomfortable with, it's best to pick the medium they're most comfortable in. This provides a way of easing into the process without imposing too much of a learning curve (Bridgman 35).

As shown below, I started with something that many people have probably seen before. It's essentially a circle with a straight line down the middle, and then two lines curving from the sides of the circle to meet the end of the vertical line. This creates the basic face shape for a view of the face straight-on. However, if the face were at an angle, I'd curve the line towards the right or left. The vertical line serves as a helpful center line for the face, and helps with placement of the facial features.

Now, in this particular post I got a little too concentrated on drawing the face and didn't take pictures of the overall process. However, a tip that I have is to not dance around it. Don't nervously draw lines and contemplate if that one line is perfect! Just go for it and do what you think you need to do in order to achieve your desired result. There's no right or wrong place to start or finish.

Bridgman also explains how the facial features should follow the contour of the face. He exemplifies this when he states, "The shape of the mouth and lips is controlled by the shape of the jaw. The more curved the jaw in front the more curved the lips; the more flat it is, the straighter the lips" (Bridgman 106). In real life, there are certainly exceptions, and this is not meant as a generalization, but as a tool to utilize when drawing.

I personally decided to begin with the lips, as they seemed the simplest to draw. However, to my surprise, the nose was the easiest to draw. As expected, I spent the longest time on the eyes, simply because they held much more detail than anticipated. Once I looked closely at the photo I was using, I realized that a lot more detail goes into the face than I had previously thought. Everything, even the whites of the eyes, had shading, angles, and shadows. If I wanted it to be realistic, I needed to draw every detail I could find.

As for photo selection? If you're just starting out, I'd recommend a straight-on photo. This is typically how we envision faces, and you also won't have to worry about making the features protrude out or sink into the face, but simply showing this depth with varying values.

Overall, this is the finished product! I found that I'm quite satisfied with it, and that it's turned out much, much better than any other of my face-drawing attempts. Its not perfect of course, but it's quite a large improvement. The drawing probably took me a total time of four to five hours, from drawing the starting base to adding the final touches of shading. This clearly exhibits how time-consuming art can be.

However, I found that I strangely didn't mind it. For one, I was drawing something I actually enjoyed (the woman I drew is one of my favorite actresses), which helped quite a lot with the process. I actually had quite a bit of fun drawing this, and it was quite relaxing. I put on a TV show for some background noise (I personally cannot stand working in total silence), kept some snacks on hand in case I got hungry, and wrapped myself in a cozy blanket, and it created a very warm, comfortable experience.

Do you use art as a relaxation technique? Do you find that you draw better when you're passionate or inspired by something? Does your environment impact the quality of your work?

Bridgman, George. Constructive Anatomy. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., 2016. Print.

The Inner Workings

Why does a body look the way it does? The answer is quite simple, really: because of what's inside the body. When you make a fist, the protrusions on the backs of your hands are caused by bones within the body; the lump on your bicep when you flex your arm is caused by the muscle under the skin, and so on. One of the key elements of drawing human anatomy is quite simple, yet nobody seems to think of it: the inner anatomy. Not just the exterior, what we see on the outside, but recognizing what is present and where it is on the inside.

Bridgman himself states that "the eye in drawing must follow a line or a plane or a mass...the line, in actual construction, must come first; but as mental construction must precede physical, the concept of mass must come first, that of plane second, that of line last" (Bridgman 7). What he is generally saying is that when actually drawing, the line will come first; however, when picturing what to draw, you must first know the mass of what you are drawing: to visualize the foot first in order to determine where draw your first line.

Instead of drawing a complete external view all at once, I will instead draw three separate drawings: one of the leg's muscles, one of the leg's bones, and one of the legs as viewed externally. By doing this, it will give me a much clearer understanding of why the leg is structured the way it is.

A very simple drawing. The main components here
are the femur (thigh bone) and the tibia/fibula (calf
bones).

Not forgetting what I learned from my last blog post,
I also used simple construction lines here to mark out
the placement of the knee and where the foot would
begin, as well as how long the femur and fibula/tibia
would be.

The bones are quite simple, and in this particular drawing, the muscles are of more importance, as it dictates what kind of dimension and shading we'll be applying to the leg. To clarify, I also purposefully started drawing the bones first, because it's the smallest layer of the leg. From there, I would build on it by drawing the muscles, and then the exterior of the leg.

I again start with construction lines, already noting that
the muscle drawing will be much thicker than the bone
sketch.

The completed muscle drawing, with labels to the
following muscles: rectus femoris, vastus internus,
sartorius, gracilis, semi-tendinosus, semi-membranosus,
gastrocnemius, and soleus.

It should also be noted that I purposefully chose not to remove my construction lines from the bone and muscle sketch, even though I will remove it from the final drawing. This is because those lines will help me to determine some of the contours of the actual leg, and will help show me where to put construction lines for the exterior drawing.

Even though this drawing by far doesn't depict every muscle in the leg, it still serves as a good guide in order to actually begin drawing a leg. When drawing the leg, Bridgman suggests dividing the lower limb into separate parts in order to focus on the unique aspects of each area, as opposed to just adding loose details to each area (Bridgman 138). I've personally chosen to divide the leg into three parts: the leg, knee, and calf. By doing this, it will help me concentrate on each part individually and to create an overall more detailed drawing.

Once again, I start off with construction lines, trying to
stay as close to the muscle sketch as possible in order to
maintain a similar size across all three sketches.

The overall completed leg! Instead of something like
my last post, I took a more realistic approach. It's a bit
difficult to see, but there was quite a lot of shading and
detail involved even though legs are rather simplistic to draw.

I chose to use a different drawing style for the leg, as the leg doesn't have as much detail as the hand does. I opted for a realism-oriented style. A major differences you'll notice is that there isn't an outline like in my previous blog post. This is because in life, there are no outlines; I've marked out the area of the leg by very lightly shading in all parts. In order to emphasize the leg muscles and bones and the shape of the knee, I've added shading to those areas to make shadows instead of leaving it as lines. For an extra touch, I also added a gradient shading from the back of the leg to the front, representing a light shining in front of the leg.

Even though the leg doesn't have as much detail as say, the face or the hands, you still have to take into consideration many things when drawing it. For example, the small, barely noticeable bump on the back of the knee, or how the heel comes slightly out at the bottom instead of just being a straight line. This is why knowing the inner structure of the body part you're drawing is so important: it helps you to correctly draw the basic structure of the body part. If the basic form of the body part is wrong, it throws the entire drawing off, even if you put the utmost detail into everything else.

Truthfully, I don't find myself completely satisfied with the end result, but I'm also not quite sure how to fix it despite spending quite a bit of time on it. As a whole, the three drawings probably took me about an hour each, resulting in a total time consumption of three hours, possibly more for the final drawing. Do you find that art is too time-consuming, or a good way to pass time? What do you think I could do to make it more realistic and lifelike?

Bridgman, George. Constructive Anatomy. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., 2016. Print.

The Human Hand

Whenever people compliment me for my art projects I've done in my Commercial Arts class, I only laugh, because if they saw my drawings of humans they would think it was done by a five-year-old. Though I've done quite a few drawings of objects and landscapes that I'm quite proud of, my absolute weakness is drawing humans. Details, proportions, shading, everything seems different when I attempt to draw people. Compared to my other drawings (which thus far have been exclusively objects or landscapes), my attempts at drawing people are rather laughable.

My very first project done in Commercial Arts! I'm quite proud of the shading, even if it could use a bit more contrast.

For my very first post, I decided to draw something that sounds very simple, yet is actually quite difficult: hands. Many artists agonize over drawing hands, due to the amount of precision and detail that goes into it and how hard it is to get the structure of the hand just right. Going into this book, I'd thought that it would just include helpful hints to drawing anatomy, yet the author emphasizes many important aspects I hadn't even stopped to think about.

One of the main points the author made is that you can't simply draw something you have no understanding of. In order to draw anatomy, you must know where the bones and muscles are located and how they tend to react when you perform certain movements. If you had no knowledge of human anatomy and were to simply draw a hand that is not based off of a picture, it would be difficult to draw because you wouldn't know the proportions of the hands, how the parts of the hand are related to each other, if muscles will tense or if bones will pop out in a certain position, and so on (Bridgman 6).

Bridgman also emphasized the usefulness of construction lines. These are basically lines to guide where things are located, and when drawing, I relied on them quite heavily. Bridgman explains how to take note of the placement of details when he says "the inaction construction line runs straight down the arm to the base of the little finger. The action construction line runs down the arm to the base of the thumb at the wrist, from there out to the middle joint, at the widest part of the hand; thence to the knuckle of the first finger, then to that of the second finger, then joins the inaction line at the little finger." This is an example of how to use the construction lines, and following his advice was highly helpful.

The construction lines I decided to create in order to help
guide myself on the placement of the fingers,
bone outlines, knuckles, etc.

How I used the construction lines, to get a very basic
shape of the hand using only straight lines. I focused mostly on getting the placement and size accurate.

It took me quite a few tries for me to become satisfied with the proportions. Another issue I've struggled with when drawing hands is keeping the palm and fingers proportional to one another. However, when I used construction lines, I didn't have too many issues with that!

I added smaller details such as the knuckles, the wrinkles
in the finger where there are joints, nails, etc.

Here I've started to define the contours of the hand and
strayed away from the straight lines in order to give the
hand a natural curvature.

Another technique I utilized from the book is implied lines. Implied lines are when you draw a figure, and in the outline you leave a blank space between lines, yet your mind will easily picture the line there. This is prominent at the top of the ring and pinkie finger, where I elected not to draw in the upper half of the fingers. I find that implied lines give the drawing more character, and the technique worked surprisingly well.

Here it's seen that I've gone back and shaded in some
of the parts of the hand, such as the space between the
fingers and areas on the knuckles and wrist.

After erasing the guidelines (which, looking back on, I should
have drawn a bit lighter), this is the finished product!

You may also have noticed I also added some lines that are seemingly random, but I put them there intentionally in order to show the bones and muscles that lay underneath the skin. For example, the shading along the right side of the wrist is meant to show the bone underneath the skin and to give the hand more depth. Though I am satisfied of the drawing, I'd admit that I'm not totally happy with it, mainly because I'd normally shade and fill in the hand more (which I did try, though it didn't turn out very pretty).

I found that using construction lines, something I had previously disregarded as "too much work", is actually quite helpful when I don't feel comfortable placing details through judgment alone. It's a helpful tool when you're unsure of where to place things.

A detail I quite liked about this process is how it went from such a flat sketch of straight lines to an body part with depth and character. In my opinion, that's one of the charms of art: watching a few straight turn into a detailed, realistic object, and looking at the end result and seeing how you've progressed since the start.

What's your favorite part about art, whether making or viewing it? What is, in your opinion, the best form of art (painting, drawing, sculpting, photography, etc.) and why? What makes art aesthetically pleasing to you?

Bridgman, George. Constructive Anatomy. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., 2016. Print.