Skeleton Heads

After beginning to work on what will be a series of anatomy studies to improve my figure drawing and hopefully, in turn, my sculpting, I continued today with sketching skulls from different viewpoints.

 

By trying to draw the skull from a different angle I’m trying to build discipline into my sketching, pushing myself to be able to design characters from all angles rather than just sketching them from face on and resting on my imagination to fill in the gaps.

By working up the tonal values on each sketch I reflect more on the form of the skull, the planes that make up the 3D object and how they translate onto the 2D sheet of paper, more so than if I just leave it at a line drawing. 

By sketching and re-sketching the skull over and over again it does become easier to place the skull in space at whatever angle I want, I’m not as adept as I’d like to be, but the practice is paying off.

 

The drawing looks more relaxed and I’m finding that I have fewer tendencies to distort the facial features when I change the angle from face on. It’s not perfect but there’s definitely improvement, which one would hope given I am sketching almost daily now!

Feeling a boost of confidence I decide to go for it! I’m placing two ‘Skeleton Heads’ interacting, a sketch to be worked up into more of a drawing. I’m creating the line drawing using the mechanical pencil that I’ve been getting more comfortable with, but I’m not sure yet what other drawing materials I’ll use to work the drawing up with. The sketchpad I’m using is a Strathmore 300 Series Drawing pad with a medium surface (11” x 14’ and 104 g/m ²).

The second skull is a little trickier than the first and I think it’s because the viewpoint is from slightly below, another Achilles’ Heel I seem to have when it comes to drawing! But by keeping the pencil marks light and sketching, erasing and re-sketching the lines, eventually it looks better.

I’m using the whole sheet of sketchbook paper, a much larger drawing than I’ve done so far so that I’m not trying to draw the detail in cramped spaces. I worked out the composition beforehand, keeping the sketch simple in design.

Hands are not my strongest point but I want more interaction between the two skeleton heads than just their eyeline so I decide to put skeletal hands into the drawing. I’m not sure about their proportions compared with the heads now that I look back at the sketch, but if you knew how long it takes me to draw hands you’ll let that one go! Hands are on my anatomy ‘to do’ list. 

It may be clichéd but anytime I think of scientific study of skulls I see spectacles. I wore spectacles my entire childhood before I discovered contact lenses and everyone always commented on how ‘studious’ I looked, so maybe that’s where the mental connection comes from.

The spectacles were definitely in the wrong place, and as I’ve already asked for some consideration on the over-sized hands I figured I should correct the spectacles!

So that’s the basic composition sketched out, I don’t think it needs anymore detail added so it just remains to work the drawing up in tonal values which will have to wait until tomorrow.

Anatomy Exercise 1

The last few days have shown me that I need to revisit the subject of anatomy so I'm going to try and build some disciplined study into my daily sketching, it can't be all fun! Not being sure where to start I figured that, as I prefer to do portraits, I should start with the head. Thankfully I still have a lot of the study resources given to me as a student but there are also a lot of books on anatomy available both from an art as well as a science perspective that are designed for this kind of study.

My intention is to retrace steps taken ages ago to refresh my memory and understanding and to strengthen the link between my brain and drawing hand so that it will hopefully improve my figure drawing. I'm sticking with a mechanical pencil to sketch with, partly through laziness (I don't have to keep sharpening it). I 'm getting more and more used to sketching with it, which helps as it's usually the only drawing tool I carry regularly, other than a Biro pen. I'm trying to become disciplined at carrying my sketchbook with me at all times as I used to when I was a student although I'm not sure where I'm going to put it on my motorbike!

I know the overall shape of the skull really well in my mind's eye but as I start sketching it I realise my memory has gaps when it comes to the fine details. Without looking again at the study materials I know I would measure some of the features wrong, such as making the overall skull too wide. Or putting too many teeth in! I have a real problem when it comes to drawing sequences of things and have to count out the teeth very carefully.

This side view in particular can catch me out, the placing of the mandible for example, I would probably have put it a little further forward. Going back over things we think we know can often show us that our memories are unreliable when it comes to the details. 

So now that I've become familiar again with the parts of the skull I try and sketch the skull from different angles, as I previously noted in my second post 'Drawing is harder than sculpting!' that I had gotten completely out of practice when it comes to drawing the head from different viewpoints.

 

Sketching from slightly behind the skull  I think on this sketch I've drawn the nasal bone showing a little too much.

The skull is turned away more because the other side of the mandible is showing, so you wouldn't be able to see that much of the nasal bone, I think.

I find this angle particularly challenging, so the only solution I know of is to keep sketching it!

When I'm trying to draw the head from this angle - slightly turned away from face-on - I have a tendency to twist the facial features, and it seems I can do it to the skull too, I'm still not happy with this one. Practice, practice, practice!