Frank Reilly Drawing Method Pdf

[Yvone Brem]

Myinitial impression of the Reilly method was that it was too complicated for beginner artists. So I decided to learn the Loomis Method first in the hope of exploring the Reilly Method later. After gaining some basic understanding of the Loomis Method, I did study the Reilly Method to see how it compares with the former. So in this post, I share what little I have learned about the two approaches for drawing the human head, their similarities, differences, examples, and my final thoughts on which one is better for beginner artists based on my experience.

The Loomis and Reilly Methods are both very useful guides for portrait drawing. While the Loomis Method aims to help artists draw the basic structure and proportions of the face, the Reilly Abstraction helps to bring drawings to life by improving the flow, likeness, and accuracy of portraits.

In the following couple of sections, I try to sum up the steps involved in drawing the human head using each approach so those of you who are new to Loomis and Reilly can get a basic idea of the process.

Andrew Loomis developed a logical process for drawing the human head in space by using simple shapes to represent its complex forms in correct proportions. The basic idea behind the Loomis Method is that to draw the head correctly, the artist must be aware of the three-dimensional structure of the entire head and know how to place the individual features correctly.

The Loomis Method helps artists to recreate the human head in their drawing by forcing us to think of the underlying structure of the head and is an excellent way of determining where to place the different features of the face in a portrait.

The flattened sides are roughly two-thirds the size of the cranium ball, but the degree to which they are visible to the observer depends on the angle of the face relative to the viewer. When drawing the head from the side view, we draw a smaller circle within the cranium ball to represent the side plane.

The browline establishes the angle of the head in our drawing. We draw the browline wrapped around the center of the cranium ball (like a rubber band) by observing the relative angle of the brow ridge and the top of the ears.

The intersection between the browline and the middle line is crucial in establishing the overall perspective of the face and is critical in locating the different landmarks on the face. This cross marks the vertical and horizontal center of the head.

Andrew Loomis suggests that we draw the hairline halfway through the distance between the midpoint marked in Step 4 and the top of the head, where the hallway line and the middle line meet at the top of the cranium ball.

This step can be confusing for beginners, especially when the top of the head is not visible. I find it easier to estimate the hairline by drawing a line parallel to the browline starting from the top of the circular side planes drawn in Step 2.

The eyes are drawn just below the browline at the vertical center of the head. The gap between the eyes is equal to the length of a single eye, and their inner corners align with the wings of the nose.

Loomis illustrates some of the principal planes of the face and describes how using these blocky shapes can help balance the roundness of forms but does not explain in great detail how these planes need to be incorporated in the Loomis Method outlined in his book.

The horizontal midline across the face marks the bottom of the eyes. The upper corners of the ears are also adjacent to this line whereas the vertical center line simply divides the face into the left and right halves.

Similar to what we did in the Loomis Method, we mark the three main segments of the face, namely the forehead (browline to the hairline), the nose (browline to the bottom of the nose), and the mouth (the base of the nose to the chin).

The browline is drawn slightly above the horizontal midline to allow space for the eye sockets, while the base of the nose can be determined by dividing the distance between the browline and the chin into two equal parts.

In addition to the shape of the forms, the primary tonal shapes can also be structured into the drawing to see how they affect the overall composition of the portrait. Once we are happy with the overall abstraction, we can start drawing the secondary features of the face such as the eyebrows, hair, nostrils, details of the ears, and so on.

The main problem I encountered while trying to learn the Reilly Method was the apparent lack of good resources that explain its process, especially on Youtube. Despite this and the fact that the Reilly Abstraction seems to have a steeper learning curve and requires a greater time commitment from the artists compared to the Loomis, I think mastering it can really take your portrait drawing skills to the next level.

For the past two years, I have been teaching myself how to draw and making an effort to make art consistently. I love to document what I learn about drawing on this tiny art blog and sharing with others!

The son of a Broadway stage manager, Frank Joseph Reilly was born August 21, 1906, in New York City. He studied at the Art Students League of New York from 1927 through 1931. Frank was admitted as a student into George Bridgman's drawing class. It was required that prospective students take an entry test. "I had boned up for this important event by studying art pose number one, the front view, using Mr. Bridgman's book as a source of information".[1] Reilly served as his class monitor from 1927. Reilly began lecturing at the League in 1933, and upon Bridgman's death in 1943 took over the figure drawing class. His painting instructor at the League was Frank Vincent Dumond.

Reilly served as an apprentice to famed illustrator Dean Cornwell, his friend and neighbor, and assisted him on several murals, including the Los Angeles Library Murals and one in the Raleigh Room of the Warwick Hotel in New York City. He held the positions of Art Commissioner of New York City, President of the Council of American Artists Societies, Vice President of the National Society of Mural Painters, and Vice President of the Art Students League.

His illustration clients included Continental Distilling Corporation, the Pennsylvania Railroad and Philadelphia Whiskey. In 1947 he completed a series of twelve historical painting for the Continental Distilling Corporation that were released as lithographs and print ads. Reilly created murals for the Bronx High School of Science and the Johnson City Courthouse in Tennessee. He taught mural painting at the National Academy of Design.

Frank Reilly's teaching heritage is linked to the French academy of the 19th century. His drawing instructor, George Bridgman, had studied with Jean-Lon Grme, a student of Paul Delaroche. Bridgeman also studied with Gustave Boulanger.

His painting instructor Frank Vincent DuMond attended the Acadmie Julian, where he studied under artists Gustave Boulanger and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre. Dumond also studied with Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant, who had been a student of Alexandre Cabanel.

Reilly developed a figure drawing method that began with six basic structural lines, a framework upon which the figure could be constructed. He is especially noted for developing a means of organizing the palette, based partially on the work of 19th-century colorist Albert H. Munsell. Following Munsell's view of separating color into hue, value and chroma, Reilly organized the figure-painting palette in this manner, creating nine values of neutral grey as a control, with corresponding values of red, orange and fleshtone. A value based palette was also developed for landscape painting. A portion of Reilly's landscape program was based on the teachings of John F. Carlson.His classes at the Art Students League and the corresponding landscape classes held in Woodstock, NY were consistently full and students on the wait list numbered in the hundreds. In the early 1960s he left the League to establish the Frank J. Reilly School of Art in the nearby Steinway Hall Building at 111 West 57th Street."He taught drawing and painting, values and color, for 28 years, at the Art Students' League of New York....His classrooms were always jammed to the doors; it is said that, in all he had more pupils than any art teacher in history". Memorial tribute by Henderson Wolfe.[2]

Many of Reilly's students went on to forge professional art careers. Richard A Botto, Gerald Allison, Michael Aviano, James Bama, Raphael Eisenberg, Basil Gogos, Jack Faragasso, Fred Fixler, Gordon Johnson, Carl Hantman, Doug Higgins, Clark Hulings, Ronnie Lesser, Frank Liljegren, Peter Max, Gerald McConnell, George Passantino, Charles Reid, Leonard Starr, Ralph Garafola, Donald Martinetti and Robert Emil Schulz are among them. Reilly's teaching influence continued through his former students with instructors Michael Aviano and Jack Faragasso as well as their students John Ennis, Jon deMartin, Graydon Parrish, Neilson Carlin and many more.

The Reilly Abstraction is a constructive, graphic hybrid method that focuses on creating the shape of the head from scratch using construction lines and shapes that represent the proportions of the face. This system is replicable, in that it focuses on abstract shapes first, rather than the details of the features. This makes it easy to grasp for beginners.

This method takes a similar starting point to the Loomis Method. It starts by drawing a circle split into quarters to represent the cranium, position of the brow and centre of the face. However, it develops the concept somewhat further, concentrating on the planes and rhythms of the head.

Draw a square inside the circle. The corners of the square should be just touching the perimeter of the circle. This square is the Reilly equivalent of the inner circle in The Loomis Method and gives us the same measurements. The square gives us the width and therefore the sides of the head. Then, the top and bottom lines give us the hair and base of the nose lines.

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