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© 1998, 1999, WetCanvas! |
[ Home: ArtSchool Online: Drawing and Painting Life Portraits: Lesson 9 ]
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© 1998, 1999, WetCanvas! |
You won't often be asked to include legs and
feet in a portrait of an adult, but if you decide to make portrait
painting a career, one day you will most certainly be asked to
paint a full-length portrait.
The thigh - the form from hip to knee - is all one bone, the femur. The femur is the longest and strongest bone in the body. The femur is attached by a neck-like form to the pelvis in a ball and socket formation. This allows the leg to move freely forward, backward, sideways, and up and down. As the thigh descends to the knee, it centers itself under the central weight of the torso. The knee is in a direct line with the hip joint.
The leg in profile
presents an elongated "S" curve. The kneecap (the patella)
is held in place by extremely strong ligaments attached to the
fibula below the shinbone. The leg resembles two cylinders of
equal length, one from the upper thigh to the kneecap, and one
from the kneecap to the inner ankle bone.
When a figure is seated with the legs bent at hip and knee, drawing
the thighs is much easier by seeing them as cylinders in perspective
and proceeding as suggested in these drawings.
The foot is a wedge
shape that flattens out at the toes. When a subject is standing,
the outside of the foot, from the little toe to the heel, is usually
flat on the ground. The main arch of the foot is on the inside,
normally raised from the ground. This gives spring to the foot
as it steps. Notice that the big toe is often separated from the
other four toes, rather like the thumb is separated from the other
fingers.
When drawing the foot, try blocking it in with straight lines
for strength and support. And block in the toes as small cylindrical
forms. Learning to draw the toenails properly will help put the
foot in perspective. This is important since all views from the
front present the foot in perspective.
Though you may seldom
be called upon to include legs in an adult's portrait, if you
paint children you will have many opportunities to depict their
little legs. The construction of a child's leg and foot is the
same as the adult's, but there is less definition of muscle and
the forms are more rounded. An infant's foot is round, not flat,
on the sole, as he has not worn shoes or walked enough to flatten
the soles. The feet are fatter than those of an adult and the
toes can be very tiny. Again, the small toenails help to establish
the angle of the foot. Many times you will prefer to paint a small
child barefoot, even in fairly dressy clothing. The bare feet
take away the over-formal look and remind us that the child is
more free and natural than adults.
To get the proportions
right, it makes sense to draw the large forms first, and then
begin constructing the masses by means of light and shade and
defining the larger planes. As you continue to work, the portrait
will gradually get more and more refined, until eventually you
arrive at the likeness and individuality of your subject. I know
an experienced portrait painter who can begin with one eye and
build the whole head and body around it, but don't make it this
difficult for yourself yet. As a student, always draw the figure
as a whole before you put in the details of the head, hand, foot,
or face.
Using the head length as a unit of measurement, the adult human
figure is 7 to 8 heads high. The idealized figure is 8 heads high,
lending a feeling of dignity and elegance. (NEVER make the head
larger than it appears; this makes the figure look clumsy.) A
good size for the average figure is 7 1/2 heads.
In the illustrations above, the male and female figures are 7
1/2 to 8 heads high. From the top of the head to the hipline measures
4 heads, and from this line to the heel measures 3 1/2 heads.
Study the diagram to see which parts of the figure can definitely
be located by the head unit of measurement. Of course, the first
head-length is the head; the second is the distance from the chin
to the nipples; the third to just above the navel but below the
waist; the fourth head-length takes us to the hipline. From this
line it is 1 1/2 heads to the knees. The center of the figure
is about at the fourth head line, or just above that line.
In the male adult, the shoulders are approximately 2 head-lengths
wide; this is the widest part of the male body. In the female
body, the hips are often as wide as the shoulders. When the arm
hangs at the side, the elbow touches the rim of the hip bone,
the iliac crest, and the inside of the wrist is on a level with
the halfway point of the figure. The fingers reach a little below
the center of the thigh.
In children the head is larger in proportion
to the body. The central figure in the diagram above, the one
year old, has a head one-quarter the length of its body. The central
point, indicated by the dotted line, is at the waist; above the
navel may be easier to determine, as an infant this age normally
has no waist. The four-year-old ( second from left ) has a head-length
approximately 20 percent of the body length, which therefore,
is 5 heads high. The central point is 2 1/2 head lengths from
the top of the head.
The eight-year-old child (fourth figure from the left) is about
6 heads high, and the halfway point is moving down nearly to the
adult halfway point, the hipline. (The three children are in proportion
to each other but not to the adult figures in the drawing. In
actuality, their heads are smaller than adult heads, but drawing
them in these sizes makes the proportions easier to see and to
remember.)
You can look at theses diagrams and study
your own body, but there's no substitute for drawing from a live
model. If you can't find a life drawing class, perhaps you can
get members of your family or a classmate or friend to pose resting,
reading, or even watching television! Portrait painting is really
only an offshoot of life drawing - a sort of life drawing with
personality superimposed. Some students are interested in anatomy,
the study of the skeleton and the muscles. Others don't have the
slightest desire to know what goes on under the skin. But as a
portrait artist, you need to know something about anatomy.. If
you want to study it in more detail, I have studied anatomy for
10 years and offer a comprehensive course. But you don't need
to master it in this great a depth. Just have a general grasp
of the details.
Practice drawing people of both sexes, all ages, seated, standing,
in a variety of positions. Most artists continue to draw from
the figure throughout their lifetimes. To draw the figure well
- to re-create its mass and its movement - is a highly desirable
skill. And there isn't an artist alive who ever feels he draws
the figure as well as he should.
We have learned to block in the figure with
jointed cylinders for arms and legs, a thoracic egg and a pelvic
block for the torso, a mitten for the hand, and a wedge for the
foot. However, there's more to it than that. We must also consider
shoulder and hip construction lines from the very beginning of
our sketch, for these lines tell us instantly how the figure is
standing and how the body weight is distributed.
The following construction
lines are particularly helpful: the shoulder line passes from
one shoulder to the other through the neck and is paired with
a second line under the rib cage which ALWAYS parallels it. The
line at the hip is paired with a second line through the tops
of the iliac crests of the pelvis; these two also ALWAYS parallel
each other. (see lines A and AA, B and BB) Only when the body
is seen standing perfectly erect with the weight distributed equally
on both feet, are all the shoulder and hip construction lines
parallel to each other.
When the weight is shifted to one foot,
say the left, as shown in this female figure, both the shoulder
line and the hipline bend toward each other. The right nonbearing
leg appears to be longer than the left supporting leg. The nonbearing
leg can be bent, or extended to front, back, or side - it doesn't
matter, for it isn't being used to hold the body upright, but
just to balance its weight. Just watching for this shoulder -
hip relationship will help your figure drawing look more natural.
Looking in a mirror, try it yourself. Stand with your weight on
your right leg and raise your right shoulder. Uncomfortable!!
As you lower your right shoulder and raise the left, your body
stands relaxed.
THE PLUMB LINEWhen a subject stands with the weight on one foot, the inside of the ankle supporting the weight is in a direct line straight down from the pit of the neck. This holds true whether the body is viewed from the front, back, or side. This very important line is called the PLUMB LINE.
If the figure is half-seated on the edge of a low desk, left shoulder lowered, left hip raised, the plumb line doesn't apply because the body weight rests on the pelvis, not the feet.
Well, there we have it! the entire body.
I hope that by this point you are drawing some very good figures.
Next week we will have a session about how to draw on the clothing.
(in artist lingo "drapery") See you then!