Week Three In-Class Drawing Exercise & Sketchbook Assignment

This week we're expanding on what we learned last week about drawing figures with 'realistic' proportions. A great way to handle the first stage of drawing a figure in action is to begin with a "stick man" or "match stick model," as 1940s cartoonist Jefferson Machamer called it in his book, "Laugh and Draw."

Once you've studied Machamer's process of developing a figure as shown above, take a sheet of white 8 1/2" x 11" paper and draw a 1" border all around, as usual. Print your name between guidelines at LR as always. Now reproduce what you see in the example sheet below. *Work with the sheet of paper in portrait format.

Once you're done, have a look at the page below. You can see that each of these stick man drawings of a figure in motion has something new added to it. The ovals included in the torso of these stick men represent the chest (ribcage) and hips (pelvic girdle) of the skeleton.

Week Three Sketchbook Assignment:

In your sketchbook, use the knowledge acquired in our in-class exercise this week to draw a figure of a friend or family member. Begin by sketching them as a stickman, then add ovals for the chest and hips, then fill out the form, giving volume to the entire figure. Finally, add surface details.