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In this, the second week of life drawing, and it was a week indeed. We had an anatomy lesson at the beginning of class. We discussed the curvature of the spine, and the Latin terms for the vertebra. I was surprised to see how much the spine actually curves. Once we got done with the lecture we tried doing some gestural type drawings if the skeleton mannequin in the classroom. I realized that I really like the forms that bones make. They are a lot of fun to (try to) draw.

There are a lot of subtleties to the forms at both the joints and the length of each bone. The drawings were meant to be quick yet descriptive. We started by finding the position of the spine in space, and placing the ribs, hips, and collar bones (if time permitted) onto the spine (and hopefully in the proper place). I enjoyed finding the shape of the ribs. Both the overall shape, and the points on the ribs where cartilage keeps them all together. I found many interesting shapes in both the positive and negative spaces on the midsection of the skeleton.

            This drawing session helped me understand how to use line weight to describe an organic form, at least a little bit better than I was able to before. We were to draw the skeleton, then the mannequin was turned and drawn again, and turned and again and again. The turning of the skeleton gave us all at least two different three-quarter views, which are much more interesting than most straight on views. Now knowing this, my sense of composition will be affected (although the space available in the classroom is not optimum for everyone to be able to get exactly the view of the model or whatever that they want)…