Chapter 5 - Ellipses and Cylinders

Chapter 5 expands on Chapter 4 by adding Cylinders to represent the limbs.  This is a useful way to render the limbs as simple shapes, and keep the three-dimensional in perspective.  I have used cylinders to represent limbs before.  I was tempted to breeze over this chapter.  However, throughout the book, Vilppu warns about the student thinking he has advanced beyond the material and skipping ahead.  I put the time into this chapter and it was well worth it.   As I progress in these studies I feel more and more confident in drawing the figure from memory and imagination.  These were drawn in ball point pen at Rittenhouse park.

Boxes - Vilppu drawing manual chapter 3

Chapter 3 of Vilppu's drawing manual teaches drawing the human figure as a group of boxes.  I did this both slowly, and in detail during figure drawing sessions, and quickly drawing in parks and coffee shops.  I found this exercise very useful because it forced me to conceptualize the subject in three dimensions in perspective.  Of course, humans are not square.  In order to render the figure, I had to use shapes beside boxes.  However I still kept these shapes geometrical, with clearly defined edges.  This really helped my understanding of using planes to describe form.  I feel my drawings are more structurally sound, and better conceptualized in three dimensions as a result of the time I spent on these exercises even when I am not drawing boxes. 

Form Study

Today, I tried something new in my study that was very successful.  I have been reading Vilppu's Drawing Manual.  One of the main points of the Manual is to "invent" the figure out of simple forms. I applied that technique to this figure drawing.  I went one step further and drew the shapes in isolation off to the side as I was drawing the figure.  This step really brought the lesson home for me.  I made a logical connection in my mind.  If I can draw a form so it looks three dimensional and I can build a figure out of simple forms, then I can draw a figure so it looks three dimensional.   This is my first time taking this specific approach to figure drawing and I am very happy with the results.