The Human Figure In Motion

I recently bought this book The Human Figure in Motion by Eadweard Muybridge and proceeded to draw some of the figures portrayed in this large book.

The book contains 195 “plates/pictures” of a person taken in burst mode.  The book was published in 1955 so it took a sophisticated camera and lots of editing skills to create this wonderful aid for artists.



Here is Plate 5.  Much of the plate pictures are smaller than these here, and Yes….lots of the people are nude!   Oh My!

When I draw these people…a particular section of a plate….it forces me to pay attention to the angles of the knees, ankles, wrists, necks, elbows, etc.  Lots of things that would be hidden if they were fully clothed.



The other thing that it forces me to do….is to paint in the less-is-more technique.  To use white space.



First I contoured the lady’s figure.



And for some reason….I thought she’d look good in purple! 




This lady cracks me up…..her pose and her cigarette!  What a rebel!!



Going with the negative white space….I really wanted to try my hand at creating shapes with better shadows.



Painted these in a faster clip to get the jest of the movement.



And my handstand guy!  If people know me they will know that I too, like to get inverted when I can…haha!



Training the hand to imitate the eye ….Once done, that’s where I recognize my mistakes!
All in all, a very good exercise!  I will re-visit this soon