More Figures & Class Demos

[KChen]

Here are some in class demos I did for my class and some old portrait studies.




















cheers

[daarken]

this is some really great stuff! i have been having problems with proportions lately, especially with the face. do you have any demos from class or some helpful tips? even when i try measuring, things always seem off. thanks!

[KChen]

Daarken,

You can find more of Andrew Loomis' notes at
http://www.fineart.sk/anat.htm

Hope this will help.

[Jucas]

Thanks for posting this stuff! This breakdown is really important, I hope everyone is taking notes, cause I sure am. Is this from your class on Saturday mornings? The workshop at Art Center right? I have been going to the workshops on mondays and fridays for the last few weeks, it has been really great, just to see so much consistently good work from different styles and people.

Anyhoo, I've been taking a figure drawing class up there at ACCD on saturdays 9-4. THe teacher is Mary Yanish... She's... ok. But, it really forces me to draw! So in total I've been taking about 4-5 figure drawing session a week including my class at pcc.

Aki tells me that there is going to be some mad paintballing going down on nov 3? Eheheheahahaha. Should be alot of fun. Oh, btw, I am sure Aiki would want me to say hello for em'.

I don't know if I feel in the right to critique your stuff, but of course that won't stop me

Carefull on some of those hips, draw through to find the other side. It seems, on certain drawings, that the hips are little wonky/inconsistent.

I'd love to pop in your class and meet you, sit down and draw one of these days. Are you teaching any other times? What rooms are you in?

Cheers mate,
-jonathan

[brokencow]

These are great...i can't wait to see more. Just looking at your sketches have helped me out.

i wonder if you could give me some crits on my works.
they can be seen here..... www.rsad.edu/~rwhiteis

I'm a freshmen at ringling. I still need alot of work on my figure...your C&C will be appreciated.

waits for more updates...

[JoshuaTheJames]

ahh thank chen!

i needed that!

-Joshua

[KChen]

Hi Jonathan,
So, you know Aki too? Small world I am at Art Center on Sat from 8am ~ 1pm in room 103 drawing every week. Swing by, hope to see you there.

Brokencow,
I just check out your site, nice work. The main thing that stood out from your figure drawings on your site is some proportional problems on the more finished studies. Some of the heads are too big (one on far left) and there is a tendency for the legs to be short. Take a look.
Another thing that stood out is the ribcage. Sometimes they looses symetry. A good ideas is to always build a solid form of the ribcage first before constructing the shoulder box on top, then the distorting muscles. When I get a chance I'll try to send you a draw over to show you what I am seeing.
I like your fuild line work on the gestures, remind me of an animators drawing, lots of life and action.
Hope this will help.

Josh,
No problem. BTW, thanks for the post of the Leyendecker site. very inspiring.

[daarken]

kchen: thanks! those helped me out a lot. what leyendecker site?! i want! heh

[KChen]

Daarken,
check out the art history section. I have been working on another World War 2 project and it is great to see some of Leyendeckers covers during WW1.

[KChen]

Here are some notes that help me out when I draw the figure.


The main thing that bothers me is the proportion of the upper torso, which I lengthen to about 4 heads long.

I included some other notes about drawing the leg too. Legs are hard to draw because of the many complex curves around them. If not done right, they will look like spaghetti.

What helps me out on legs, is to look for the bone structure first, starting with the great trocanter (top of the upper leg joint). From there I pay attention to the direction of the knee to see how much the leg is twisting. The upper leg bone is always bowed. The direction the upper leg bone bows toward is always the direction of the knee. Next I look for how the direction of the knee relates to the direction of the feet. This way I can see a clear twist in the leg gesture and have a solid bone underneath the muscles.

Planting the models feet to the floor is crucial for adding weight to the pose. I usually like to think of the feet as a box to help define perspective. The bottom of the feet are usually squashed by the weight of the body, where they are forced to match the shape of the ground surface. Hence, describing the floor for us.

I've included some notes on the breast to illustrate the pectorialis underneith. The breast(fat) sits under in a comma shape which hooks around to the ribs. It forms a distinctive two overlaping forms on the side of the chest.

Hope these will help, I'll try to go over other drawings as I find some time.

[KChen]

More Demos from head drawing class:

[davi]

you are the king of kings.
i love every post you do, keep up the great work!

question: what hardness of pencil are most of these? 2B or higher? I'm trying to get back into pencils and these are very similar to the strength i want to bring to my work.

[KChen]

Thanks Davi,

I use 2B or 3B. i like to have the charcoal soft enough so it feels more like painting when i apply the values.

Head/neck demos from this week...

[KChen]

Here are some class demo for the long pose class. The main point was to get the students to think in terms of sculpting planes with light.

[zenmaster]

HI,

the figure drawing is been a great interest to me and seing your work makes me study harder till late in the evening.

I have been reading Vilppus and Andrew Loomis books.
They have been exceptionnal guides.

In my city their are no classes of figure drawing teaching similar style, like Vilppu or you. There is only one school offering one class of anatomie... and i took it.

I wanted to ask, what's a good fundamental procedure or steps to fallow to advance.

i quote you:

"I have been drawing people consistantly for 9~10 years and a good 2 years on movement, 2 years on simplfying form, 2 years on value, and now trying to focus on acting. I just barely getting into color and starting to get exposed to compostion."

i figure that i start with gesture, then contour amd blind drawing, etc. Later on, i study the planes, values, and so on till muscles. You talk about mouvement, simslifying shapes and values.

Could you clairify these steps to fallow?

thank you to be there
Louis-Étienne
quebec, canada

[KChen]

This is from a reply letter I wrote today for a possible student who wanted to know how I teach my class before they signed up. I think the info below will help answer questions about thoughts on learning priorities and procedures.
I break it down this way so the students will have a stepping stone to build and re-enforce their skills upon. Something to make the learning process more managable.
Each stepping stone is there to help you build your skills for the next. I think it is a good way to introduce the students to these ideas and see how they relate.

My profession outside of teaching is Concept Design for games and films. I specialize in characters and creatures. What is important to me on my job is to be able to create out of my head and have the skills to make it interesting and believable. Another part of my job is to ensure quality control through production (style guides and critiques). That's why I need to break everything down to simple elements and language, that so everyone can understand, so we can improve the product.

If anything, I try to teach my students how break things down to basic visual elements and learn how to prioritize and use the elements to better communicate the idea.

Here are some of the things that I teach my students in the figure class:
(in order of things to learn first)

- perspective (learn how to think and draw in space. Learn how to draw a cube, cylinder, cone, and ball in perspective and scale)

- proportion (train your eye to see this, if proportion is off, placement, weight, and form and likeness is off too)

- Gesture (learn how to see relationship between things: how forms are tie together by action, thought, or weight)

- form (learn to see simple mass of the body and ignore the details. See the big idea)

- overlaps (learn to communicate spacial relationship between forms. What is in front of what?)

- planes (adding more information to a simple form (cylinder) by breaking it up into planes (example: Box - more 3D directional planes detail with top, sides, bottom planes).

- construction (able to trim and add smaller forms on top of the bigger structure with out losing your dominant perspective. Putting the details on "top" of the form, not through it)

- lighting (learn how light works and how to use light to better communicate your idea. What do I want to show? What type of lighting should I use?)

- Shapes (compose your image with the basic 2D elements of light and shadow shapes, page layout. How do I compose the image to better stage what I want to show? How can I communicated abstractly? how do I use contrast to communicate?)

- edge / texture (learn how the eye sees and focus. Learn atmospheric perspective. How to draw the space and air around the model)

each step is there to re-enforce and strengthen the previous.

kevin

[KChen]

Class demo for the long pose class.

[KChen]

Class demo on laying in the figure for long pose.

[KChen]

1st day of class for Head Drawing. Demos on Head Proportion and simple construction:

[KChen]

Here are some of the students' in class drawings from last term:

[KChen]

Lay-in Demos from 2nd week of class:

Analytical Figure Drawing Class






Head Drawing Class

[KChen]

Some notes I wrote on how to locate the Gesture Line. Thought might be helpful to post it here:

[foster]

kchen, this is beautiful to see! your student's drawings are wonderful. for the bulk of those standing poses how long did they have? i may have to download some of them and show my students what should be done (as well as myself)!

jon

[KChen]

Jon,

Thanks, I am blessed with a very talented and motivated group last semesters and I am very proud of their hard work

The class is 6 hours, but with breaks and lectures the drawing time is around 4 to 5 hours.

We also did some duo model set ups, I wish I had some photos of drawings from that day.

We start the class from 20 min poses and work our way up to 1 hour, 3 hour, and then 5 hour to slowly build up their eye and attention span.

I'll try to take some photos as the students progress from this term. If they don't mind me posting them

[KChen]

This week the class focus was on laying in the composition of the figure with simple 2 dimensional shapes.

With 2D shapes alone you can solve gesture, proportion, abstraction, weight, composition, eye flow and simple form indication. The more you can solve at this stage the more effortless and elegant your design will be. A good example would be Sargent's portrait studies: very little rendering but, excellent use of shapes.

here are some old class demos on making sure your drawings read with simple 2-D B/W Shapes (keep the comp simple). If the image looks good and reads well with just 2 values and flat shapes then you are ready to take it to the next level with rendering. If your drawing doesn't read at this simple level, no matter how much more rendering you place on top, it will not save it. Usually, a lot of the over-worked and ununified student drawings are the ones who rushed through this first crucial design stage.

Think about what do you want the viewer to see. Try staging and contrasting your details with small, medium, and large shapes for spacing details. How can you stage your image better? How can i lead the viewers eye with direction of my shapes (framing or pointing)? How can I get the action to read better with straights and curves (tension and relax)? How can I communicate the mood with my value proportion and shape? All these thinking and problem should be answered at this stage before you start your rendering. A good 2D lay-in is more than just a copy, it is the master blue print for your priorities and composition. It should read clearly and be able to state what you want to say without relying on rendering!!

It's a good exercise to do some master copies with this in mind and see how the masters manipulate your eye and feel with just simple shape contrast.

Here are some examples of laying for long poses:









red circle stands for focal point.
red line stands for eye flow.
green line stands for small, mid, big shape spacing.

[KChen]

Some notes on Head and Drapery:

[Big_O]

Great!!! Many thanx. Have you ever considered to put that stuff together in a book? I would definitely buy it....

[Lev_0]

Yea, I would buy a book with all this in it. All the construction stuff like the neck, the legs, the back diagrams of muscles/construction you've posted have been more helpful than what vilppu has in his book (though he focuses on other equally important stuff hehe). Couldn't you start a little printing thing like vilppu has going on? It would probably contain a lot of the same info but there's things you've posted here that vilppu doesn't really cover that have been really helpful.

(edit- I guess that's if you wanna make a buck or 2 lol, it's awesome that you're posting all this here).

[Mindflaw]

:beer: Drinking knowledge and it taste great tnx for sharing

[BadMange]

Kevin, could you post examples from your class on each step you teach your students (see kchen's post on the 2nd Page, edited here by me)?

Here is some of the things that I teach my students in the figure class:

- Perspective
- Proportion
- Gesture
- Form
- Overlaps
- Planes
- Construction
- Lighting
- Shapes
- Edge / Texture

-Bad Mange