Drawing Expressive Figures
Follow advice from Edward Laning and study Peter Blume's Nude to create arresting human forms."In drawing the figure, begin with any part of the body, but try to grasp it as a whole from the beginning. Place the body, with all its extending members, on your page quickly and lightly. Then draw the trunk—torso and pelvis. This is the most important part of your figure. Treat arms and legs, hands and feet, and head and neck as accessories which attach to this trunk as extensions of it.…
"Above all, in drawing the human body, make the trunk (torso and pelvis) the expressive part of the drawing."
What does the trunk of this figure tell us about the subject?
Source: Edward Laning. The Act of Drawing (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1971).
Pictured: Peter Blume, 1906 Russia–1992 USA, Nude, 1957, brush and ink on paper, 18 1/2 x 12 11/16 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation.
Follow advice from Edward Laning and study Peter Blume's Nude to create arresting human forms."In drawing the figure, begin with any part of the body, but try to grasp it as a whole from the beginning. Place the body, with all its extending members, on your page quickly and lightly. Then draw the trunk—torso and pelvis. This is the most important part of your figure. Treat arms and legs, hands and feet, and head and neck as accessories which attach to this trunk as extensions of it.…