Ink Skull Studies

Because you can't practice enough from life (or in this case, a cast.)

Hunt 102 nib, brush pen.

Snow

It's all we've got lately.

    

In the Grand Tradition of Pin-up Art

Here are a couple of recent efforts in a genre that's over a century old:

   

According to Wikipedia, the term "pin-up" was coined in the 1940s, but the genre itself can be traced back to the 1890s.

Here's a cool vintage pin-up blog by a woman who collects old pin-up art. IllustrationArt also had a great post on the genre that lacks (maybe deservedly so) serious respect in the art world.

Focusing on Figures

I've mostly been on a life drawing kick lately. My archive of life drawings has grown to an unwieldy size and the few that I think stand out from the pack are getting lost in the noise. So, I've added a new Figures section to my main gallery page, which features just a few of my favourites.

On a related note, processjunkie (AKA a blog run by Alberto Ruiz) posted an article featuring his favourite classic figure drawing books with handy links to download them in electronic formats.

From Parkdale

Drawn with a nib and brush.

    

More from life

Most recent pieces from life drawing sessions:

Keeping it real

Whatever other drawing practice one does, there just isn't a good substitute for drawing from life. These are a couple from my last life drawing session at TSA:

Another Vintage

Might as well post another vintage figure while I'm at it. I was actually kinda pleased with the torso of this one, but I'm still not getting great results with my fabric and folds.

Swinger, Slave

This DeviantArt member posts a lot of really useful public-domain vintage photos which are ideal to use as drawing reference.



I find these photos are great for lighting, poses as well as hand and feet, which the photographers of the time seemed to pay a lot of attention to.

4 Stock Sketches

Just a few quick ink figures to keep the blog alive.



This DeviantArt photographer has great reference material for figure sketching practice.

Ink Figures

Lately, I've been enjoying using the combo of fountain pen and brush pen when I go to life drawing sessions.

    

Anatomy Phase I: Complete!

So I've gone through the first 74 videos in The Structure of Man. And I can now do the following from memory:



Well, about 90% anyway. There are some details on the hands and the radius & ulna that I'm still a bit hazy about. Before I move on to the muscles, I'll try to do a few exercises putting the skeleton in 3D and in a variety of poses.

Bones

So rather than just talking about it, I've started going through the anatomy lessons I posted about previously.

    

Along the way, I'm gradually building my own anatomy reference book. I'm not quite at the point where I feel I can leverage this skeletal knowledge much in my figure drawing; it's a lot of work and the muscles are going to be even more work. And after that it's going to be even more work to get comfortable drawing this stuff from my head and putting it in perspective. But it is something I feel I should've put the time into learning many years ago. Better late than never I suppose.

And I was just thinking

about how I needed to learn more about human anatomy, and how to apply it to figure drawing.

This drawing gave me all sorts of trouble, trying to figure out how the obscured hips and right leg would look, and how the legs would attach.



Lucky for me then that I should stumble upon Riven Phoenix's The Structure of Man - 170 sequential videos freely viewable on YouTube, teaching you classical techniques on how to draw the figure from your mind. A fantastic project! I have a feeling this will become a staple of modern, internet-enabled art instruction. Thank you Riven Phoenix for creating such a valuable resource.

More Poses

    

Tricky exercises in extreme perspective/foreshortening and motion. Reference courtesy of DeviantArt stock artists.

Femmes Fatales

DeviantArt's stock art category provides limitless opportunity for finding drawing reference. Here are a couple of fun poses from my recent Web Models series:

Back to the Blog

No, I haven't left the blog to rot... I've just been doing a lot of portraits and not blogging. Anyway, here are some of recent drawings I've done:



Both are Pentel pocket-brush on 11x14" bristol.

I came across a page recently on the Drawn.ca messageboard with links to PDFs of some highly-regarded art/illustration instruction books from the 1930s and 40s by Andrew Loomis:
Fun With a Pencil
Figure Drawing For All It's Worth
Successful Drawing
Eye of the Painter

Note that that download site makes you go through a few hoops, but just click the 'free' option. It'll also make you wait between downloads, so you'll have to space them out over a few hours.

The books must be seen to be believed - they contain some of the most useful information on drawing that you can get. Beyond that, they are each full of hundreds of stunning Loomis illustrations. I really wish I'd known about these books back in art college. Don't pass on the Fun with a Pencil because of the title, it's a very sophisticated yet easy to understand book that covers a much of what's in Figure Drawing and Successful Drawing.