I’ve recently caught the ‘figure drawing bug’ again, and have been drawing non-stop since early February of this year. Since then, its been a personal mission and obsession to attend as many figure drawing workshops as possible in the San Francisco Bay Area where I currently live. This is a field report of my recent drawing journeys.
These reviews are of the recent workshops I’ve attended, organized by day. There’s also contact info for anyone who wants to draw at their local workshop, and support the Bay Area life drawing community. This report is currently ongoing, so check back for more updates, artwork and reviews.
This video is demonstrates how to construct the limbs (how the draw the limbs) during a figure quick sketch drawing. The video demonstrates basic figure construction of the arms and legs. Topics covered include gesture drawing, anatomy and landmarks. There are examples from 3 different poses. Narrated by the artist.
Now that we know how to lay-in the torso, well at least from the front view. Let’s construct the limbs to give our figure some arms and legs.
The approach from the torso study tutorial is sometimes called a “construction” approach. It’s a methodical way to observe and de-construct the figure. Besides construction, there are other considerations when laying in the figure. For example, gesture and rhythms are what animate our figure drawing and give it life.
This tutorial is an introduction to figure quick sketch drawing. Quick sketch is a name for short, gestural drawing from life or figure model. The poses can generally range from 1-5 minutes. Topics covered will be the fundamentals of gesture drawing, laying-in the figure and an introduction to the Reilly Method. Figure quick sketch is a key fundamental skill in creating effective drawings so let’s get right into it.
The approach to Reilly Method I use is a synthesis of three teachers: 1. Sergio Sanchez, 2. Rhaban Canas and 3. a touch of Steve Huston. When I first started to study Reilly Method, the first thing I was taught was how to properly lay-in the torso. The torso is important because it is the largest mass of the body and it is where all the limbs and extremities originate. For the purpose of this tutorial, we will use a front view of a female torso in a relatively static pose. Since the torso is so important, I will spend some time breaking down the steps of the lay-in before we move to light and shade.
