February 11, 2017

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.

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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.

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

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First I contoured the lady’s figure.

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

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

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

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

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

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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 Smile

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