Anatomy, Aircraft, and Aves.

 Learning Anatomy

In the past few years, I have been trying to develop my skill in the area of figurative drawing and painting. A few copies of great masters’ portraits and efforts of my own were the starting point. I then attended classes of drawing figures that cumulated in coaching by Paul Birchall. The work with Paul took me to another level where I could draw figures from my imagination. The results were OK but can be improved.

A am a friend of an artist, Charlotte Firbank-King, who produces the most fantastic images straight from her imagination. In her paintings people and animals abound in all sorts of natural settings. Er ability to create and most amazing detail in a scene is astounding. One day Charlotte said to me that to improve my figurative and portrait work I would benefit from the study of anatomy.

I have a collection of books on anatomy and figure drawing for artists. I began a process of study following an idea put forward by Loomis in his book ‘Figure Drawing for all its worth’. Loomis suggests taking a diagram showing the various muscles and identify them from suitable sources.

My process begins by selecting a figure from a book on human anatomy published by 3dtotal publishing. They present a photograph of a model and superimposed on the image are the muscles, tendons and bones visible from the surface. I produce a drawing of the image on A3 layout paper (60gsm) and then refer to my various books to attach labels to the various muscles depicted.

So far, I have created two diagrams through this process. I spend about three days to create a diagram. I work for a few hours and then retire to other activity so that the learning points can sink in. Most of what is depicted remains on the drawing not in my head but I am counting on repetition and practice to address that problem. The diagrams below are where this style of work has reached so far.

 

Muscles of the arm and body from the back

Muscles of the body from the front

Aeroplanes

Following the drawing of the Hawker Hart that I describe in a previous post on this blog I repeated the process to create a drawing of an American Biplane, a Boening Stearman. The aircraft was used to train naval aviators in the 1930s and 1940s.

 

Boeing Stearman

Bird photography

One of my hobbies is photography, with mixed results I spend quite a bit of time trying to photograph birds. I recently had the opportunity to photograph a Turaco, locally known as a Knysna Lourie. The bird has striking red wings that are only visible when it flies. Because it lives in forests the main way of getting about for this bird is to hop along branches and then swiftly leap and fly to the next tree. This presents a challenge for the photographer, getting the bird in the frame, focusing, then capturing the backlit image.

My own attempts were not particularly successful. However, there was sufficient detail in the image to be able to create a drawing of the bird and then add colour using coloured pencil. I drew the image on A3 layout paper (60gsm) using Lyra pencils, then added colour using Lyra coloured pencils. The result is presented below. 

Knysna Lourie - pencil drawing with colourd pencil 'wash' over