Anatomy Lessons: How to improve faster in 6 steps!

First of all, if you want to learn faster you should draw using traditional tools.  It may seem a stupid or banal rule but it is not. 

You will need a piece of paper and a pencil, preferably a medium-hard pencil or HB ("H" stands for "hardness," while "B" stands for "blackness"). If you  have already familiarity with this hard drawing medium you could obtain different soft pencils instead: B, 2B and 4B will be fine. A putty rubber and a white rubber from a good brand will work fine. 

Well, now that you have the tools, sharpener included, get in a bright spot of your house, preferably on an inclined surface (otherwise your future drawing will look in perspective, and you may not be happy with the result!) and copy the hand your not using for drawing. Try not to erase too much. Try to grasp the structure of your hand through many sketches in which you should only draw the outlines of your hand and fingers, you should forget about the shading for a moment. 

Fill the paper with these sketches of your hand in different poses and please include your wrist if you can. Continue your workout every 2/3 days (preferably daily) for 2 weeks, what am I saying?  Do it until you could see significant improvements! 

Write the date on each work you have done and keep them carefully without rubbing them. The first step to be a good artist is to give value to your works. When the hand really looks like a hand and not a mass of sausages then you're ready for Step 2.

The result will be similar to this, only the folds of flesh and contours of the hands should be visible.

Hand proportions work this way...

So now we better move to the second point. Ok guys, do you remember your own hand? That hand you copied so many times, that fist, that cramp that came while you deformed it? Here you are, you should repeat the procedure but this time you will not have to copy only the outlines of your fingers. You must work hard and point on your hand the dramatic light of a lamp, because this time you should draw your hand and shade it. 

These are practical examples of a good result.

  

Since you are already conversant with your left hand (or right that it is) and you say you know it by heart (if you say so...), now I'm asking you to take your colored pencils and do an experiment. This time I'm asking you NOT to do a preliminary sketch in pencil of your drawing: just draw one or both of your feet, using colored pencils only on semi rough paper F4 of different colors (I recommend a white, a grey, a blue and a black for a good start). Again, do not stop until the result satisfies you. Write the date on the work because now the interesting part begins.
The result should be similar to these, of course in colors.

 

Feet proportions works this way...

Now that you have experimented with various techniques and you quite understand how your hands and feet are made, you need a model for understanding how the face works. 

Ask one of your friends, your parents, if nobody wants to pose for you then use a picture (but it's always better to do life drawings first!). As tools you will need a ballpoint pen, preferably black or blue, and a white smooth paper (A4 copy paper is fine too). Now make a copy of the person in front of you (face, neck and shoulders), and remember well that you can not/must not erase this time! Yes, I'm evil. Try to do several sessions of the same person until the drawing is really similar to the original and recognizable from others. 

Begin with a front and profile view, then try out 3/4. 

'Cacophony' by Anapath

The proportions of the human face work this way...

It 's time to understand how the human proportions work. A tip? Never stop taking references from the human figure (as long as you're learning) or you will make a lot of mistakes or exaggerate many anatomical features without even noticed it! 

Now use your live model of choice, or look in fashion magazines and copy a full human figure in different poses, focusing on lines, shading, dynamism and execution speed.

To improve your speed you should first start with 15 minutes poses, then reduce the time to 10 minutes and 5 minutes at last. Use a timer: leave the drawing unfinished and start another one when the time elapses. 

Do many of them, every day. 

The results should be something like this...

'Life Drawing Collage 4' by travelingpantscg

 

 

 

 

 

If you didn't understand how the anatomy works, you can study some good tutorials for the human body...

 

 

I really hope you will find this journal useful and I really hope you enjoyed the journey. ^^