BRNK

Figure Drawings

Here are a few if the keepers tonight. I’m trying to push myself with my figure drawing, trying to stay cognizant of a few key things when I work:

1. Feel the weight of the figure rather than draw the lines that define it. Howard Pyle once famously said “Don’t paint the sleeve, be the arm.”  This means to be empathetic to weight and tension when drawing and draw how that feels. I know it seems weirdly esoteric, but keeping this in mind helps me a lot when drawing.
2. Design the figure. It’s not enough to simply translate what you see; choose points of interest and give them the love they need to be focal points. I tend to use the pinker parts of the body to create a rhythm running down the figure: Face, nipples/elbows, hands, knees, feet. Because these parts have more capillaries near the surface of the skin, you can throw red in them and they feel right.

15 min pose

15 min pose

10 min pose

5 min pose