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strbry-shortcakes · 7 months

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taking some extra anatomy classes this year, here are some of my notes in case they could help someone. should be updated every weekend (aside from october 28th and november 4th which are free days) with the following lesson's notes. (further explanations at the end)

anyway. here goes:

SCENE 0-1: LEARNING HOW TO LOOK/OBSERVE

when drawing, we each more or less have our own methods when approaching certain subjects, with multiple tools at our disposal in order to achieve the desired results.

but generally, when drawing a model (or most things from life, actually) we can in some sort of way define a general order as to when to draw what:

Looking / Observing

Blocking In

Correcting

Details

for today i’ll focus on the first one of the list, looking / observing.

the existing nuance between “seeing” and “looking” exists in the sense that “seeing” is more passive than “looking”. when you say “i can see a cat”, you aren’t paying too much attention to the cat. but when you say “i am looking at a cat’, you are actively paying attention to the cat and what they’re doing.

(given the class is in French, the nuance was similar, using the words “voir” and “regarder”. but due to French not having a close equivalent to “watch” i cannot make more parallels about this, as my knowledge of English and French-to-English translation is still fairly limited)

when looking at a subject, the primary objective should be to understand what you’re looking at. you can look at a subject (or the world as a whole) under multiple filters: values, hues, proportions, in 2D or 3D, and so on. you need to define how you want to look at a subject following these filters of vision. what do you want to look at first? what do you want the viewer to look at first? this is important to define before you put your tool to your support.

generally when drawing from life, it’s a bit reckless to rush to draw the model without actually observing them a minimum. you should take the time to observe, you are allowed to take your time to observe. no amount of limited time should paralyze you from examining the model the best you can before you put your tool to use.

getting this more precise vision of your model can give you a better vision of their body, which is often hidden under detail. when drawing them, you should ask yourself “how is the model posing?”

why look/observe? (probably like the most given piece of advice by pros and art youtubers who aren’t pros but still get called pros cause they have 1 million subscribers on youtube)

this question is very easily asked but also very easily answered:

to know how and what you’re going to draw

to time yourself correctly and have a good time management (drawing a pose in 2 minutes is completely different to drawing a 10 minutes one), thus,

to avoid rushing to draw the subject. as said previously, take your time. start slow, but stay accurate to the model. (teacher compared it to a musician rehearsing a piece, first slowly, then speeding it up progressively as he gets to know the piece itself better and better. unfortunately as someone who is as farthest from a musician as can be, i cannot honestly attest to if this is accurate).

but really, there is actually no such thing as a “finished” drawing. a graphite drawing could always have color added afterwards, a painting could always get more and more detailed. a piece is “finished” only when you deem it is finished. the French Académie des Beaux Arts didn’t like the Impressionists because to them, what the impressionists were doing were half assed jobs, since the idea of “transmitting a vague feeling, or an emotion through a specific style of very visible strokes” was absolute fuckery to them. speaking of,

to transmit an emotion, or a feeling through the posing of the model. the more technical and controlled the strokes will be, the finer the wanted sensation will be felt by the viewer. this also ties in the physical aspect of the model. ideally, in order to achieve this, you can try posing the same way the model does. it may be a bit awkward but it works (depending on your learning type, of course.)

to understand how the whole “body system” works. “i know the rules of the human body, therefore i make little to no mistakes.”

adding a whole context to the pose helps: adding a situation in which the pose could work in gives some meaning to your drawing, as well as helping you remember it better. it also adds a narrative element to your drawing(s), which are absolutely always a plus. (memorization is also an important tool!)

now let me play devil’s advocate and ask: why not look/observe?

well, uh, there are two reasons my teach told us:

to let your instinct and imagination go wild and free, trust your gut and have fun!!

and, tying back,

to let yourself be surprised by what you’ve done.

form synthesis (or just different types of approaches to draw form)

when drawing a model, there’s a few things that can be mentioned:

multiple types of lines exist with different purposes within the drawing: the action line(s), structural lines, and contour lines.

action lines define the overall movement of the pose. the principal one is the one you see when giving a better look at how dynamic the pose is. the secondary ones are the ones you can find in secondary rhythms when examining the pose a little longer.

(here's a better example, actually:)

structural lines are pretty much the “stickman skeleton” you sometimes see in certain how to draw books (specifically the more advanced manga themed ones).

contour lines surround the form in a way as to draw all of the outer body without using inside shapes or lines. (it is also the basis for the Bargue method which will be slightly discussed below. there unfortunately won’t be any talk about cross-contour lines, as it hasn’t been talked about in class (yet?))

generally, lines take either an I shape, a C shape or an S shape. (teach said it’s preferable to mostly use I and C type lines when drawing live models. probably due to the fact that S shapes are much trickier to use “effectively” within a piece (effectively not meaning much in this context, if nothing at all. again, have fun.)). using these lines tell a lot about the model and the pose, telling a sort of dynamic storytelling which varies depending on what type of line you choose to represent your model.

we can mostly talk about 2D shapes when three or more points have been linked by lines. sometimes, lines can skip articulations for the sake of dynamism. shapes should be thought about in their entirety, the difficulty that can be encountered usually being remaining vague but accurate with your form.

now, a quick word about:

the Bargue method (or, the fuck do you mean the Americans used it in art schools before us, Bargue was literally born in Paris, i fucking hate the Académie des Beaux-Arts)

the Bargue method is probably fairly well known among certain art schools or artistic communities. if i do recall correctly; it originated with Bargue noticing the low level of the students of the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Paris (or some other place basing itself solely on academic style art and paintings located in the city of Paris in the country of France on the continent of Europe) and devising a simple way to learn how to draw accurately from life (or plaster casts, depending on what you prefer). it solely based itself on straight, contour lines, forming a base around which to slowly add details to. apparently, a lot of art schools in america base their teaching of life drawing on this method, but given i do not feel like getting over $200k in debt without even mentioning living and travel costs, i cannot say if that is actually true.

here's an example of it:

it’s pretty much basing yourself on simplifications of the form to attain absolute accuracy. no curves here to distract you, only straights. somehow, when pulled off correctly, it gives a very neat impression of realism.

anyway, that’s all i wrote down. hope teach won’t see this anytime soon, and hope this kinda helped a little bit. next week’s notes should be about blocking in shapes, so we’re starting to be a little more concrete with the actual drawing process.

these classes were taught by Mr Francis Buchet at a class given at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, so most of the things i’m saying here are taken from him and his class. if you live in/close to Paris and are interested in learning artistic anatomy, i suggest you look up where he is giving public classes, since they’re infinitely more engaging than these notes. his instagram is be linked below. (hoping he doesn’t get mad at me for sharing these notes… in any case i will use my own example sheets to avoid getting in any more trouble.)

and, may i remind you: these notes are only here to showcase one approach among many others, so they don’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. i myself am in absolutely no way a professional, so please, take all of this with a grain of salt (or a spoonful, even). draw how you enjoy drawing, and find happiness in the way you want to draw.

Francis Buchet's instagram: x

so, seeyou next weekend! (or earlier, if i draw something i want to show here.)