Heads

I've got heads in my head.

For a long time, I managed to run away from the base for a portrait drawing proposed by Andrew Loomis*. I thought that all the proportions can be seen anyway, and I prefer and like to draw moving from one element to another, without a basic sketch, which would immediately define frames of things. And that it might be more difficult to maintain the similarity of the portrait when it is so important to plan the elements right from the very beginning. I was also afraid that Mr. Loomis's rules would make me Mr. Loomis.

But I was afraid in vain and thought incorrect. Mr. Loomis not only does not bite - it is useful for drawing from the imagination and also allows you to have fun with "pouring meat". Because with a ready-made basic sketch of facial features, you can freely deal with the style of the line, mutual tones of chiaroscuro and color, accents - in a word: everything else, no longer worrying about anatomical correctness at every step.

I am therefore exercising Mr. Loomis rules and slowly reading his "Drawing the Head and Hands." Slowly, because there is no Polish translation. I do not understand all the rules yet, not all the guidelines are clear to me or manageable. For example, I think I'm doing too small basic circle / or too big elements of the face / or I put the eyebrow line too high / or everything at the same time, which often means that I have to add a lot of space on the brain, i.e. a skull or hairline. The geometry of the basic grid in perspective is also a bit behind me. Thus, my unfulfilled at this time of year, great dream, is to get a styrofoam ball for making Christmas baubles, which I will be able to circumcise with a great tenderness on the sides, pierce with a long nail, bedaub with a magic marker, and stare at it at various angles for long hours. 

I assumed that I would train these heads in a few hundred. At first, dry, from my own head, to understand the rules. Then with reference photos, to learn how the components of the face look from different angles. Some sketches are only outlines, some in more detail, to add some diversification and not be bored with the process. The last batch will be a test because I hope to draw only from the imagination. And we will see. And it's cool. Today I celebrate the first hundred. And I congratulate myself (Thank you very much. Oh, it's nothing really. Yes, it's something!) because I'm always surprised when I manage to keep discipline like this. 

I practice in my favorite sketchbook, which is just a xerox paper. With pencils, sometimes with the addition of some colors. On the right are scans of the end part of the first hundred. It does not make sense to show beginnings, because it is known that they will hurt you in the eyes. However, because I want to see if and what changes in these exercises and where they will lead me, I will add them chronologically. As for the models, the photos from Pinterest are invaluable, although painfully "not human", so I hope to hunt some friends heads as well.

To sum up - I'm thrilled. Let's crush Loomis.

* Andrew Loomis. 1892-1959. An American illustrator, known mainly, but not only, as the author of instructional books for a realistic drawing of a human figure and its elements. Drawing principles go from the general to the detail. They assume that the head can be folded from a ball cut on the sides and closing the cranium, connected to the jaw. Meridian and parallel lines on the ball marks the point between the eyebrows. The proportions of the face can be divided into three heights, translating into lateral bevels. Such a base can be moved basically in all directions and on different angles. You need to mind only the perspective rules and remember about the fact that nature is an ingenious mother.