DRAWING AND PAINTIG THE HUMAN FIGURE 

If an artist is interested in painting the human figure,

whether the general intention is to clothe them or not,
the artist will do well to study the human figure in all its facets.
This means LOOKING at unclothed human figures in order to teach the eye to SEE what it is looking at and why clothes drape the way they do!

Croquis [croakies].. that's what we called them in art school-- sometimes half-minute, or two-minute opportunities to catch the stance of a figure-  to get down what we could see about the pose in a few lines-- were the shoulders parallel to the floor, or tilted, and the hips- were the tilted the other way?  Was one knee higher than the other?  Which way was the neck aimed and how was the head set on the neck.  Things like that are keys to getting the gesture of a figure down on paper.

The images here are various instances of this sort of study.  Poses range from the thirty second kind to the two hour kind.  Or even the two week kind!  I will include some of my old work here and some more recent.  



CROQUIS

OIL STUDIES OF NUDES FROM ISSAQUAH STUDIO DAYS