The images presented here in this collection are all my own. They are only but a few examples of the many drawings and illustrations I have made specifically for this class, either working from a model or from my imagination. Throughout my lecture, I project numerous images like these onto a large screen using a digital projector. A number of these visuals will be printed for my students and given as handouts for them to be used as reference.
Click the images below to see a gallery of a few of the detailed handouts that I provide my students.
It is important for my students to be able break down the complicated forms found in nature into basic shapes in order to better understand their geometry and construction. My ultimate goal is to teach students to draw these complicated forms from memory. This illustration I use when teaching the pelvis. This geometric shape is one I created and use to help my Écorché students understand the general planes of the hip bone and better visualize its complicated form.
In this illustration, I am showing the three major muscular forms of the pectoralis along with, for example, the position of its insertion: the upper 2/5ths of the humerus. Understanding these types of proportions are important for my students in the Écorché class because they have to sculpt these complicated muscular shapes and must know their actual placement. I give these handouts to my students with the intention of making this information more accessible visually and introducing them to a solid system of study.
This is a photo taken of an écorché sculpture I created many years ago illustrating the different planes of the rectus abdominus. Sculpting the anatomical figure in clay is similar to making thousands of drawings. Sculpting these shapes not only helps the student to better imagine these forms three dimensionally but “burns” this information into their memory.
I will often take pencil drawings I have done in the studio from life and use them in my lectures. The muscles of the back are many and are very complicated, so for the sake of the course, I combine all these muscles into two simple vertical shapes along each side of the spinal furrow: a narrow, thin medial form a wide oblique lateral form.
The “negative” on the left of the pencil drawing on the right done from life illustrates the “M” like shape of the rhomboid plane and the bottom of the boney scapula. I use a number different hardness of graphite leads in my drawings. I usually begin with something soft, a 2B… or sometimes one even softer, such as a 6b. Using a light touch and a properly sharpened pencil, I find my initial construction lines that much easier to erase.
It is important for my students to learn how to break down these complicated skeletal forms into basic geometric shapes to better understand their construction. My ultimate goal is to teach students to draw these complicated forms from memory. Take the skull for example; understanding it’s basic geometry allows us to visualize tumbling this complex form in space and being able to draw it any position from our imagination. To do this, a student needs to appreciate this form’s simplest planes and components. Every edge and/or plane illustrated in this example represents a specific form: the edge you see running horizontally along the side of the face sets up the border between the cheek bone (the zygomatic bone and widest part of the face) and the side plane of the skull. This edge is also an important anatomical land mark that sets up the bottom of the orbital cavities.
This charcoal portrait study illustrates the 4 major planes of the nose. Something I find especially true for those interested in portraiture: the features of the face need to be drawn over and over again. Why? To better understand their basic geometry and construction. This understanding gives our work confidence and authority regardless of the medium being used.
This is a drawing of my own eye done looking at a mirror. Proportion rules are necessary for any student in their study of anatomy – even how it pertains to such a small feature as the eye. I tell my students that in no way are these rules intended to replace what they see in nature but is used to help us see more critically. I believe it is absolutely paramount that any art student studying the human figure understand and know these canons.
This is image is a detail taken from a figure painting I did many years ago while a student at the Florence Academy of Art. Here, I discuss how dark the actual “white” of the eyes (the sclera) are when compared to the surrounding values of the face. Studying anatomy does us no good as artists if we can’t relate what we are learning to what we see when we are confronted with the live model; regardless of the medium.
It is important that my student learn to “see” écorché… in other words; to better appreciate those boney and muscular shapes found underneath the skin that impact the surface of the human body and create form. I did an écorché as a demo for my students of a pencil portrait of mine to illustrate the muscles of the face.
If you're interested in finding out when my next écorché class will be, visit the workshops page.