New Edition of Drawing Made Easy

My favorite beginning drawing book is available again after being out of print for a long time. I posted about it a year ago.

First published in 1921, Drawing Made Easy taught millions of people to draw, and it’s the one that taught me. Now Darren Rousar, a prominent instructor of academic sight-size drawing has brought it back into print.

Drawing Made Easy uses a sensible approach. Each drawing begins with simple, easy-to- comprehend shapes and proceeds to details last, essentially the same method used in the 19th century academies.


Each drawing is presented in a series of straightforward and memorable stages. The subjects are people, animals, flowers, and charmingly antique trains and cars.


The beginning student—either child or adult—progresses to fairly challenging subjects by the end. That clover would be difficult to get right without the analytical method that Lutz presents. This new edition also includes a few key chapters from Lutz’s intermediate book, Practical Drawing, which covers the proportions of the figure and the management of light and shade to produce form.

When Mr. Rousar asked me to contribute the foreword to this edition, I was thrilled. Here’s what I wrote (click to enlarge).

If this post sounds like an ad, it is! I would love to share this book with people who want to learn to draw, whether they are adults or children. You can order a copy directly from me by sending a check payable to "The Dinotopia Store" for $14.95 plus $3.50 shipping ($18.45 total).

Mail to The Dinotopia Store, PO Box 693, Rhinebeck, NY 12572. (USA residents only, NYS residents, please add sales tax). Here’s an order form you can print out and send.

The Anatomy of the Ear

The external ear is also called the auricula or pinna. The outer rim or helix spirals up out of the bowl-like conchal fossa. A swelling known as Darwin’s tubercle is present in 10.4% of the population.

The antihelix curves inside the helix, separated by the groove called the scapha. It splits at the top into the superior and inferior crux or leg, with the triangular fossa in between.

The flap called the tragus protects of the auditory meatus, or earhole. Often with two distinct swellings, it uses the Greek name for goat because of its beard-like hairs.

Across the intertragical notch is the prominence known as the antitragus, part of the stiff cartilaginous shelf from which hangs the fleshy auricular lobule (earlobe). The depression behind the ear is called the auricular sulcus.

Wikipedia on external ear,
Darwin's tubercle (thanks, Donna)
tragus (thanks, Stape)

Teachers Reworking

In this brief video clip, artist Clark Hulings recalls how the art teacher George Bridgman at the Art Student's League insisted on erasing student work and redrawing over it.

How do you feel about art teachers who draw on your work? Students are paying teachers for their expertise, and it’s a privilege to own an example of a master’s hand, right?

But it’s also can feel like an act of vandalism. It can be infuriating if the teacher doesn't respect or understand what you were trying to accomplish. Should teachers ask permission? Should they do their drawing on the blank paper off to the side? If you have an opinion or a story, please share it.
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More about Clark Hulings at clarkhulings.com.
Thanks, Alex!

Academy of Realist Art

The Academy of Realist Art in Toronto teaches its students the skills of careful observation based on classical methods.


One of the principal instructors, Fernando Freitas, recently took me through the building to explain the course of study.

The curriculum is based on the book by Charles Bargue and Jean Leon Gerome, which was originally produced in the mid-nineteenth century for the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.

There is no portfolio entrance requirement. Students come from all different backgrounds and ages. Each student follows the same series of steps or levels. They move ahead to the next step whenever they’re ready.

The first skill to master is to reproduce a two-dimensional drawing. The goal is to learn to capture shapes and to understand the division of light and shadow.

The next stage is a vine charcoal or carbon pencil study to understand the effect of light and shade on a plaster cast. The drawing and the cast are set up side by side in the same light and checked until they match perfectly.

This so-called “sight size method” takes a lot of floor space because you have to back up from the subject and see the drawing and the model in one view. Two students generally work side by side from the same cast.

They then move to painted studies of casts, still life studies, and painted studies from the nude model. Some studies can take 30 to 60 hours of work.

Mr. Freitas also encourages students to learn from the classic texts on drawing and painting by Harold Speed. He has produced an instructional DVD called Drawing the Figure, which follows the process of creating a tonal drawing of a standing figure from start to finish.

“We’re more an academy than an atelier,” Mr. Freitas said, “because we are based on an objective, classical approach rather than the working methods of one individual master.”

The atmosphere of the school is focused, energetic, and collaborative, more like a martial arts academy than a free-form art school. It feels like entering the dojo with a clear mind, focused on the task at hand, leaving behind your worldly concerns. One easel was emblazoned with a sign “I SEEK EXCELLENCE.”

The way of learning art at ARA is very different from other schools, and I know that not everyone agrees with it. I’ve heard the criticism that the sight-size academic method it leads to uniform results, or that it amounts to passive copying.

I think those views misunderstand the objectives of classical training. The purpose is not to teach style or personal expression, but rather to give each growing artist a solid foundation to build on, and to offer them a deep familiarity with classical models and timeless standards. Drawing and painting at that level of sensitivity is a very active process indeed. It deeply engages every fiber of a student’s being.

The ARA is not trying to be everything to everyone, and I believe that is their strength. The results that are framed up in the hallway are nothing short of breathtaking, and the sense of shared purpose among the students is palpable.

There is much every art school can learn from the example of the ARA. I believe that every art student should have the chance to go far beyond the 20 or 30 minute poses that are common in many art schools and to see how finely they can tune their response to the visual world.
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Official Website for the Toronto school (with a new campus just opened in Boston, MA), link.
Freitas video on drawing the figure, link.
Bargue book on Amazon, link.
More about the sight size method, link.

Plane Heads

Here’s another painting exercise that I learned from Paul Souza, who taught the “scumbling the lights” method on a previous post.

As you look at a real posed model, try to analyze the head in terms of simple planes.

State the lines bounding the planes in pencil on chipboard. Seal the board as before, and apply the white oil paint with a bristle brush in varying degrees of thickness until you get the relative tone just right. Leave the shadows untouched by the paint.

I recommend that you use this plane breakdown as a guide. Both the forehead and the upper lip are divided into three planes. The chin and the nose each end in a flat shape.

The same analysis, in varying proportions and angles, can describe very different face types. If you try this plane analysis, and it just doesn’t fit the face, try an alternate breakdown, but keep it simple.

It should look like a puppet being carved from wood, as was stated in the Carolus-Duran post recently.

Seeing forms in simple terms helps you to draw or paint them better. As you proceed with a real portrait, you can subdivide the planes and blend their edges. If you establish a portrait in these terms at the beginning, you’re much more likely to get a three-dimensional appearance and a good likeness.

Netter’s Medical Illustration

One of the places art meets science is medical illustration, and one of the masters of the field was Frank Netter, M.D. (1906-1991), whose contribution to the field is on the order of Vesalius or Leonardo.

Trained as a doctor, he began doing illustrations to clarify his understanding of anatomy. “I found that I could learn my subjects best by drawing," he said. His life work of more than 4,000 illustrations grew, he said, “in response to the desires and requests of the medical profession.”

The paintings of bones, muscles, cross sections, and internal organs often use color coding to clarify separate subsystems. Dr. Netter used watercolor and gouache, with colored pencils and pastels for shading and fine detail. He once said:

"It is important to achieve a happy medium between complexity and simplification. If the pictures are too complex, they may be difficult and confusing to read; if oversimplified, they may not be adequately definitive or may even be misleading. I have therefore striven for a middle course of realism without the clutter of confusing minutiae."

His work is collected in the Atlas of Human Anatomy (1989), which is still held up as a gold standard among students of medical illustration. For those interested in studying medical illustration, there are specialized programs at Johns Hopkins in Maryland, the Medical College of Georgia, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Cleveland Institute of Art, and the University of Toronto.
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Wikipedia: link.
Graphic Witness: link.
Netter Images: link.

Scumbling the Lights

Here’s a painting exercise that really works well with people who are using oils for the first time.

1. Starting with gray-brown chipboard, do a careful pencil drawing of the model about 22 inches high. The model should be lit with a single clear light source.

2. Seal the drawing with shellac. The shellac should be brushed on and squeegeed off with a piece of cardboard.

3. Squeeze some titanium white oil paint onto some blotter paper, or other absorbent paper to remove excess oil.

4. Using a bristle brush, scumble the white paint only in the areas of the form that are touched by light. Make the paint thin for the darker halftones and thicker and whiter for the highlights.

5. Leave the shadows untouched with paint. The result should be a photographic look, with an attention to variations in the light.

This exercise was taught at Art Center College of Design by the instructor Paul Souza. Mr. Souza studied with Millard Sheets and Frederick Taubes and died in 2007 at age 89.

Model to Mermaid

How do you get a mermaid to pose? Like unicorns and dragons, they are fantastical creatures, not entirely of this world. I wanted my mermaid painting to look real but not in a literal or material sense.

Although in previous posts (here, here, and here and here) I’ve suggested using photography for figure reference, when it comes to mythological or storybook beings I prefer to use life studies rather than photos because I feel freer to be guided by my imagination.


I did two studies, one in charcoal and one in paint, both directly from the model. In the charcoal study I concentrated on the basic linear gestures and on the soft lighting of the form. I also started thinking how to join the human form with a fishlike tail and how to bend the tail so that she could ride “sidesaddle” on a tamed sea creature.

I recalled from my experience snorkeling that skin tones appear cooler in water than they do in the air, and the side planes of the figure fall away to a bluish hue, lit from all directions by scattered light in the water. The color study above, made with the model in front of a blue cloth, allowed me to start exploring this unusual and magical color quality.

In both studies I took the first step toward my mental image, making changes in what I was seeing and not copying the model literally.

Écorché

In the late 1870s, Thomas Eakins and his colleague Dr. Keen at the Pennsylvania Academy realized to their dismay that their dissected cadavers were getting a little past their prime.

So they had them cast in plaster. Eakins cast his own hand, too. Later on the plaster casts were converted to bronze.

The tradition of studying skinless cadavers goes back to Leonardo da Vinci. When you remove the dermal layers, the insertion points and the overlapping of the muscles becomes much more apparent.

A body without its skin is called a “flayed figure” or “écorché.” I did this study of an écorché dog from a plate in the book Animal Painting & Anatomy, by Frank Calderon, (London 1936, now Dover)


The French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon created this écorché figure as a study aid for artists. Écorchés were in common use at the École des Beaux Arts in the 19th century.

In this painting of a sculptor by Edouard Joseph Dantan, there’s an écorché figure behind the model.

Some art schools and ateliers have returned to using Houdon’s écorchés, and some present-day artists have created new écorché reference sculptures.

A few retail sources carry écorchés, but you should get a good look before buying because some castings are many generations away from the original. Also, consider your intent. A white écorché is better for understanding the planar geometry, while a polychromed, medical-style écorché might be better for studying the muscular anatomy. Example of a polychromed ecorche: link.
Example of white ecorches: link.

"Freedom of Teach" reference figures, link. (Thanks, Bowlin, Mr. Atrocity, and Drew!)

Feel free to pimp other sources in the comments.
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Related GurneyJourney post on plaster drawing casts.

Kushite King

In an earlier post I mentioned that a good way to develop reference for figure work is to pose yourself in front of a mirror and make a charcoal study on tone paper.



For this National Geographic illustration I needed to show a triumphant Kushite king accepting the homage of vanquished princes in Egypt in 724 BCE.

I first met with the project archaeologist Dr. Timothy Kendall in the basement of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He showed me primary-source drawings of the snake headdress, sandals, wing corselet, and transparent garment worn by Kushite royalty.

I wrapped myself in a sheer curtain to simulate the costume. I set up the tone paper on an easel and acted out the pose, looking at the reflection in a full-length mirror mounted on a door.

Even though I’m not exactly the right type for the character I was portraying, I was only looking for the basic structure of the pose. I could get the Nubian features from other sources.

I recommend the method for three reasons. It’s often faster than shooting photo reference. It gets you immediately away from the photographic look. And it forces you to begin interpreting the pose, making artistic decisions that give your result more coherence and impact.

Mirror studies have always been a favorite method for animators acting out facial expressions and gestures. For faces, you can use a medium sized mirror hung in front of your work table.
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For a previous GJ post on installing a full-length mirror, link.

Here's a selected list of articles I've illustrated for National Geographic:

March 2006 Battle of Hampton Roads
Dec. 1997 Patagonian Dinosaurs
Nov. 1990 Kingdom of Kush
Feb. 1989 Attic Scene
Oct. 1988 Moche, Peru
May 1988 Wool
June 1988 Etruscans
July 1987 Soybeans
June 1987 Eskimos
Aug. 1986 Ulysses
Sept. 1985 Jason
Sept. 1985 Humboldt

Arc of Hollows

When drawing the shoulder area of the torso, watch for the “arc of hollows.”


These pits or indentations follow a curving line from the pit of the neck to beneath the clavicle. The line curves along the leading edge of the deltoid and ends in the armpit.


The arc of hollows is marked in yellow on this study of a reference sculpture.


The hollows are marked with X’s here in Michelangelo’s David.

This idea came from Drawing the Head & Figure, by Jack Hamm, 1963, page 70.