Week 12 Life Drawing & Basic Human Anatomy: Posture & Pose, Balance, Weight and Gesture

This week we are drawing a life model mainly to get the concept of balance in drawings and models. To successfully do this we must determine the subject’s centre of gravity and then match it within the drawing.

The first drawing on the left is of a model resting his foot on a table, from this drawing we can see that the models centre of gravity is slightly to the left of his right foot. This works as it is clear that the models weight is slightly to the left and that he is compensating for this by leaning his elbow on his thigh and his foot on the table to try to equalize the spread of weight on his feet.

The second drawing of the model sitting on a quilt uses the same technique as the first, from this drawing we can see that the his centre of gravity passes over his right foot from his shoulder level, although it is not obvious from the drawing he is also slightly leaning back and using his right arm to balance. I believe that my drawing of the model has the body at the right angles although its proportions are slightly off which gives the image an unusual look.