image courtesy of George Bridgeman
Mass of the Body

The idea to remember is that we are attempting to illustrate the three dimensional body on a two dimensional surface. We have to articulate mass by knowing what we are drawing. That is part of the reason for understanding the skeleton and musculature. In this class, we are surveying these things, and Bridgeman provides a great example.

The body and its parts have mass - how many times do I remember my teachers telling me this! Draw and paint remembering that your flat shapes are telling a 3-D story.

Painting and Drawing the Figure
Attaching the Body to the Head

This process involves accurately articulating a figure. That does not mean that we always want to!, but the educated artist should be able to reproduce a figure accurately. Note that many of the world’s most fabulous artists, well-known for drawing and painting figures have stretched parts, elongated limbs, and enlarged toes for effect. You will too. But, you need to start with the original. Studying proportion, rhythm, mass, and balance are keys to understanding the figure. Proportion sees the basic shapes of the body, and correlates them to one another. Rhythm brings visual fluidity to the body, and its shapes. Mass prepares the body with sufficient quantity, and balance keeps everything in its place, (or out of its place purposefully), and stable. We will start with exercises that train you in all four, with special emphasis on each every week.Proportion: Look for how the parts of the body relate to one another. Notice especially the head, and the size of the head to the size of the body. Often, various artists scale the body by the size of the head. George Bridgeman shows several "measurement" techniques. These are valuable to show how to not only illustrate an accurate appearance, but also how to alter those shapes convincingly.

Find an artist

One of the most important things an artist can learn is what is good. Though that may sound trite immediately, as I have thought through the various kinds of art, I have found that various popular and exceptional artists follow a certain path, not because they must, but because it challenges them. I must ask myself, what is the challenge they are facing. At that point, I begin to understand the goal that artist attempts.

So what? As a learner and a growing artist, I want to understand what is good. Not just what I can do, but what can be done. With over a million people calling themselves artists in the state of California alone, many people ... do stuff. And call it art.

How do I discern what is worthy to pursue? Ultimately, I think it comes back to what is pleasing. But, be careful: as I grow, I find new conversations more intriguing - (with art and artists alike!). I begin to understand and appreciate new references, even to think better of things I would dismiss at an earlier point in my artistic life.

The point: find the artists you like, and strive to understand them! Don't be afraid if you don't do it right...just keep trying, asking questions, and energize your bright eyes.

Contrast

Check out an artist named Scott Christensen - he has two different types of paintings. Some are called tonal, and often they have low contrast. However, most of his paintings have very high contrast. He is one of my favorite painters, and I love to look at how he simplifies the landscape to identify what is important.

Notice - what do you see first? Second? Contrast is one of the tools painters use to direct your attention. By developing your skill at recognizing value (dark/light) and how to use them to direct your audience, your paintings will become the more engaging.

Look at the three different pictures below. Notice that when you have a strong contrast, the picture is very compelling. The shadows are not only highly defined, but the face is very defined.

For the middle face, the shadows lighten up, have some color in the shadows (the top was b/w), and have depth and subtlety in the light areas.

In the light contrast, the shadows become very light, even difficult to discern the difference as easily as the other two. Subtlety reigns.

Excellent artist use all of these, for various reasons.

Portrait and Figure Study
Form – Drawing from life is the perfect means to develop your skills from observing to translation. The idea is similar to translating foreign languages, because with drawing, you are seeing an object in four dimensions (3-D plus time) and attempting to translate that to a 2-D experience. In the beginning, I teach seeing form in 4-D by drawing/painting still-lifes. By observing a still-life, artists can perceive the form, and draw it accurately, rather than with all the interpretations that we are prone to place on people. I do advise drawing live people too! But, the still-life provides an excellent inter-medium that shows off value, color, and shape very similar to heads and bodies of humans.
First Lesson: Draw/Paint Fruit Still-Life
Focus on creating a painting that represents the objects. In one sense, that is how to observe humans too. Drawing family members can be very frustrating for that reason – we do not see their faces, but what we think about their faces. Though this is very beautiful, too, and should be represented, I think the first focus is to paint as faithfully as our eye sees the object. By selecting that as our goal, we get our minds from mere recognition to observing the objects. Then we can paint them according to our observation.
Painting by our feelings has merit, but it describes something else happening in us. Painting through observation requires both visual and mental focus, and then the magic! of mixing appropriate values (dark/light) with hues.