Saturday 17 March 2012

Figure Drawing - Non-human Anatomy




These are a collection of quick animal studies drawn using a 6B graphite pencil. The bear studies in particular show speed through the roughness of the line to create block shapes in different tones to quickly get the form of the animal on the paper in as few lines as possible to mimic practise of drawing alive animals.This technique also helps to emulate the animals fur, so works well with animals where it would not work as well with human figures; this also adds to the distinction between animal and human figures,  as the study of the grizzly bear in particular shows it standing in a very human stance but it clearly identifiable as the correct species through the quick markings. 

With the panda and lynx studies, I focused on the animal's spines and how 4 legged animals differ from the human skeletal structure. The shape of the both spines are mostly accurate, the spine of the lynx should be elongated more as at the moment the body is quite squashed and the tail doesn't follow on from the spine as perfectly as it should. As with the human figure studies, the lynx shows weight and balance through the positioning and tension of the front and back legs and paws, and also the hunched shoulder blades, accentuating the aggressiveness of the cat. The aggression of the animal should also be visible through baring it's teeth, however taxidermy animals all seem to be too happy to accurately portray aggression as they would if still alive.

With the study of the lynx and the top panda, a different work process was followed, starting off with the general shapes of the animals  working from the head and down the body, this technique took a lot longer than the other and would not work so well with living (awake) animals but produced good results on ones that don't move. Loose tonal values were also later added to the lynx to add a greater sense of depth by showing less details on the paws further away from the viewer and add the impression of fur.

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