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Attitude by Patricia Hannaway, 2006, pastel sketch drawing, 21 x 12. Human figure sketching, especially learning how to sketch from a model, is one of the most rewarding ways of practicing art because it can enhance your abilities in ways that are both practical and inspirational. It's practical...
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Seeing a painting or figure drawing progress from beginning to end allows the finished artwork to be understood as a series of discrete steps leading to a virtuosic whole. During a recent tour of the Grand Central Academy (GCA), in New York City, I observed instructor Joshua LaRock developing a drawing...
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Last week we talked about parallel parking a car -- or in my case, not parallel parking the thing -- and how, if we don't know a specific skill, we can frequently compensate by doing things another way. It's not easy drawing the human figure accurately, and if you've tried and you've...
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Okay, I'm going to share with you my dirty little secret: I can't parallel park a car. Well, I can parallel park a car as long as I've got three blank spaces, in a pinch two, and it helps that I drive a Honda Fit. But for the most part I'm willing to drive blocks out of the way and walk...
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I have a painter-friend who is gearing up to do a major work with figures, but she feels a bit rusty about painting a model in all his or her glory. To help prepare herself, she's set up a series of life-drawing sessions so that she can spend a bit of time drawing models before tackling her actual...
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I'll admit that in the past I have been guilty of thinking of colored pencil art as colorful and bright and not necessarily able to be coupled with serious subjects or moody narratives. But that was my own bias. As I've spent time looking at sketchbooks of draftsmen creating colored pencil art...
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Susan Lyon's figure drawings truly set her apart artistically and are the foundation and preparation for all she creates as an oil painter. If you ask her why, it is a drawing's immediacy, directness, and drama that are the ideal conduits for her creative sensibilities and in her opinion these...
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I was recently on the train with a friend who caught the attention of an artist sitting across from us. She started drawing my pal. We were thrilled! It was an exciting moment as we watched my friend's face appear on the paper in front of us. As the artist went about her work, I observed her in action...
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In figure drawing and painting, knowing the ins and outs of the human body is essential. There's no way around that fact, and honing our skills with anatomy drawing helps us understand and truly see the body more accurately than any other endeavor. Drawing by Stephen Schultz. I was flipping through...
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That sounds gross, but in the hands of contemporary painter Alex Kanevsky, it's not. As a classically trained artist, Kanevsky's painting techniques and skills are strong. But the way he chooses to paint--in patches and broad swaths that lend a visual vibration to every inch of canvas--is not...
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Okay, I'll admit that skull reading and phrenology sound a little silly to me. Trying to get a sense of a person from the hollows and grooves on their skull? Not buying it. But I do know that "reading" the skull as an artist is key when it comes to learning how to draw a human head for...
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Click the picture above to view your free video lesson on charcoal drawing. I was inspired recently when I went to an art gallery show and saw some wonderful charcoal drawings. For so many of us, charcoal lessons were part of our first explorations of art making, but to see these highly finished charcoal...
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I recently took a life drawing class and showed my sketches to a friend, who's a super-skilled painter. I was reluctant to share them, but when she looked at my final sketch--in which the model had her hips contrapposto but twisted slightly away from me with one arm across her chest and the other...
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Hello there, I'll be doing some blogging for Artist Daily about human figure drawing . The plan is to do half of the blogging as written text and half as video episodes where it would be easier to demonstrate the concepts I would like to talk about. But perhaps it is a good idea to introduce myself...
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Fine art has evolved in many directions, but comic book art has retained a strain of DNA from classical times. The heroic Greek gods were the forbearers of our modern superheroes and the portrayal of those heroes has carried on in the tradition of how modern artists portray comic book heroes. All artists...