Life drawing resources?
Dr. Scriabinstein
have models posing for life drawing in them. I'm sure a live model is
the best way to practice life drawing but when you don't have a model
available wouldn't drawing from a book suffice?
Cham Pugh
says...
>
>I'm wondering if there are any books, websites, or even videos that
>have models posing for life drawing in them.
There's always Playboy, Playmate, Hustler, etc etc.
Electric Nachos
Cham Pugh wrote in message <4176...@nntp.zianet.com>...
That's right - And digital cameras come in handy too... just get a mirror
and strike a pose!
Lauri Levanto
Dr. Scriabinstein wrote:
NO it doesn't.
The classical substitute is non-animate objects like sculptures.
The lies centuries of experience behind that.
-lauri
Terry
'04, and we used a mannequin (we called him Bruce) that we dug out of
the still life cupboard. It was as close to the real thing as I think
you will find, and better in some ways because Bruce hardly moved at all.
Cheers,
Terry
Dr. Scriabinstein
of drawing life from photos. I know drawing the real thing is
important but I'm always one to ask why. Say you've got a seat at the
back of a life drawing class and you're nearsighted, but you've got a
camera with you. You take a polaroid of the model from the point of
view of someone at the front and then draw from it. I suppose you
might say that what's missing from photos is the ability to touch and
walk around the subject but aside from that what makes drawing from
pictures evil? I'm in solitary confinement right now and all I have
for drawing inspiration are a few books and magazines.
Death to Ronald Reagan
Edward G. Nilges
If you really want to learn figure drawing, copying from any
two-dimensional representation, whether painting, drawing or
photograph, is not the way to go.
The most realistic drawing needs to reflect the artist's knowledge of
the concealed elements of the figure, revealed to him or her by
changing light or by walking about the model.
This isn't mysticism. Concealed elements teach the artist to show not
only the external appearance of a leg but also to express (by
additional intensity of line, for example) the fact that it is
compensating for the hidden weight of draperies.
Therefore, if you cannot persuade people to take their clothes off for
you, you need to go to a museum with a sculpture collection and make
drawings.
The Junior School of the Art Institute of Chicago, in the 1960s, did
not allow models to pose nude and made them wear one-piece swimsuits.
Therefore our teacher had us draw sculptures, for at this time prudery
in America hadn't advanced to the point where the Attorney General
forced his flunkies to conceal the Greco-Roman statuary in the Justice
Department.
Another alternative is to buy cheap, and reasonably lightweight,
plaster casts from a full service art supply store.
If you live in the sticks and can't get to the museum, or afford
plaster casts, and you can't talk your friends male or female into
sitting in the nude, then the only hope is if you have a Catholic
graveyard in your community, in which rich people invested in the 19th
century in mourning figures. The problem, of course, is that if the
police catch you there will be questions asked. Also, most of the
figures will have mourning cloaks on them.
But many communities feature one or two butt naked statues celebrating
our lopsided victory over Spain in the 1890s, made at a time when the
"beaux artes" in America were at high tide, and when American artists
studied in France.
For example, a lightly draped figure in Union Square in San Francisco
celebrates Admiral Dewey's victory over the Spaniards in the
Phillipines. Many communities put these things up, only to have to
extend them with lists of names of dead men as we got ever more
involved in more and more foolish wars (Bush Caligula alone has
provided already more than 1000 names).
The best realistic art reflects knowledge not only of the nude but
also of anatomy, and, it might even pose the question as to why dead
men don't get to see what you see. Unfortunately, the French Salon
institutionalized this in the fop empire of Napoleon II and the result
was lifeless photography made too slow by examination passers.
The intention was good, for it reflected the revolutionary spirit of
"the career open to talents", but the examination process was
dominated by unimaginative hacks who managed only to reproduce their
own way of doing things.
But, they never allowed the artist to even copy from two-dimensional
drawings.
Lauri Levanto
To put it simply,
copying flat to flat does not much improve your observing skills.
Any 3d object is a different challence.
I guess you have access to a photo of a chair.
Draw it from the photo.
Then draw any real 3d chair available
to see the difference.
I have used my hand, foot etc as model.
Drawing a self portrait from a mirror
shoulkd also be possible.
Anyway.
the most important thing is to draw *something*
-lauri
Electric Nachos
Lauri Levanto wrote in message <417e4f84$1...@news.dnainternet.net>...
I'd like to interject that this thread is rather humorous, since artists are
TAUGHT to visualize a 3D object as a TWO-Dimensional object before and
during the copying process. That visualization IS the artist's way to "see."
(How To SEE As An Artist)
While drawing a 3d object (and seeing like an artist), you will essentially
do what a photo has already done for you.
Bob C
> I'd like to interject that this thread is rather humorous, since artists are
> TAUGHT to visualize a 3D object as a TWO-Dimensional object before and
> during the copying process. That visualization IS the artist's way to "see."
> (How To SEE As An Artist)
Very humorous indeed, with all its pronouncements of what artists must
and must not do. There is nothing wrong with working from photographs if
it gets you the results you want. One can learn a great deal about
anatomy from copying photographs (how many people have access to flayed
cadavers these days? not me...) and learn a great deal more about how to
draw figures and portraits by copying the drawings and paintings of
great artists. When models aren't available, drawing from photos can
still be very useful for sharpening figure drawing skills, although it
should still be only one part of learning approach which would include
drawing from life whatever model substitutes can be found - oneself,
mannikins, fruits and vegetables, etc.
But realize that it is just a start, because if you're serious about
learning life drawing you'll eventually have to find models to work
from. Part of drawing is learning how to better see your subjects.
Learning how to better observe what you see in life is almost certainly
going to be more inspiring and useful to you than learning how to better
observe what you see in photographs. None of this means, however, that
there is anything necessarily limiting by working from photographs once
you've already developed your life drawing skills - assuming you're
doing it by choice and not just out of convenience.
What really got me over the hump in figure drawing was learning how to
understand the structure of what I was seeing and then to reconstruct it
on my support. Now I can even do the same thing when working from
photographs, but I can't imagine how difficult it would've been to have
gotten there if I had never had the opportunity to work from life.
- Bob C.
Electric Nachos
Bob C wrote in message <417EBE82...@erols.com>...
>Electric Nachos wrote:
>
>
>> I'd like to interject that this thread is rather humorous, since artists
are
>> TAUGHT to visualize a 3D object as a TWO-Dimensional object before and
>> during the copying process. That visualization IS the artist's way to
"see."
>> (How To SEE As An Artist)
>
>
>Very humorous indeed, with all its pronouncements of what artists must
>and must not do. There is nothing wrong with working from photographs if
>it gets you the results you want. One can learn a great deal about
>anatomy from copying photographs (how many people have access to flayed
>cadavers these days? not me...) and learn a great deal more about how to
>draw figures and portraits by copying the drawings and paintings of
>great artists. When models aren't available, drawing from photos can
>still be very useful for sharpening figure drawing skills, although it
>should still be only one part of learning approach which would include
>drawing from life whatever model substitutes can be found - oneself,
>mannikins, fruits and vegetables, etc.
>
>But realize that it is just a start, because if you're serious about
>learning life drawing you'll eventually have to find models to work
>from.
That contradicts what you just said - a paragraph ago.
>Part of drawing is learning how to better see your subjects.
Which is nothing more than identifying shapes and lines within or on a 3-d
object, and then transferring those identified shapes and lines onto a flat
2-dimensional surface. Photographs do this automatically, whereas the artist
drawing from life has to do this mentally, first - manually, second.
>Learning how to better observe what you see in life is almost certainly
>going to be more inspiring and useful to you than learning how to better
>observe what you see in photographs. None of this means, however, that
>there is anything necessarily limiting by working from photographs once
>you've already developed your life drawing skills - assuming you're
>doing it by choice and not just out of convenience.
That contradicts what you said - two (3?) paragraphs ago.
>What really got me over the hump in figure drawing was learning how to
>understand the structure of what I was seeing and then to reconstruct it
>on my support. Now I can even do the same thing when working from
>photographs, but I can't imagine how difficult it would've been to have
>gotten there if I had never had the opportunity to work from life.
No - You're all over the place on this topic.
>- Bob C.
>
sarpedon
<c4df4d15.04102...@posting.google.com>...
> I'm wondering if there are any books, websites, or even videos that
> have models posing for life drawing in them.
Yes, there are fine art books with photos and sometimes including the
artwork made from those photos.
One book is The Encyclopedia of Art Techniques, which is a good
book even if it is written by a boonch o' bloody British wankers. ed.
by Tessa Clark.
Another book has nothing but photos of nude men and women in motion
postures, The Figure in Motion, by Thomas Easley.
the sarp
Lauri Levanto
Electric Nachos wrote:
> While drawing a 3d object (and seeing like an artist), you will essentially
> do what a photo has already done for you.
That was clearly stated.
thanks
keith o'connor
light and shade - head studies etc. Traditional western art describes form
in terms of flat and curved planes that are parallel too or turn away from
the picture plane or an abutting plane. Planes are best analysed in terms of
wire frame structures. Edge shading - sim-contrast-shading and passages are
overlaid on the structure. Computer graphics make use of this old method.
Traditional methods stated that you learn to draw from studying the work of
other artists ( includes drawing from plaster casts). Once you have
developed a level of skill you go to nature for variety . Looking at a tree
or a nude will not tell you where to start - how to structure etc. Learning
to draw from nature is a myth but it sells a lot of paint and keeps art
teachers employed.
--
take care: Keith
"Dr. Scriabinstein" <jas...@primus.ca> wrote in message
news:c4df4d15.04102...@posting.google.com...
DNALJM
>> have models posing for life drawing in them. I'm sure a live model is
>> the best way to practice life drawing but when you don't have a model
>> available wouldn't drawing from a book suffice?
It won't if you strive to be a master figurative artist, but once you
get the basics down you can make some very nice black and white drawings from
photos (you can see R. Crumb making drawings from his high school yearbook in
the movie Crumb, filling in the flat areas of shadow with form based on
experience) and also practice things like proportion.
I have some books by my bed, "Naughty Paris" and some old master drawings
that I draw from on scrap paper before I go to sleep and I also draw in cafes
and bookshops. Here are some websites to get you started:
http://www.fineart.sk/
Lots of females from all angles, in line-up type poses
http://www.figuredrawings.com/learn
tutorial and references
http://www.vesalius.northwestern.edu/
Vesalius' anatomical atlas
http://www.comstock.com
clip art images available that you can sketch from
good luck,
jane