Figure Drawing (2023 session) with Tommy van Auken

Ramble

This is year 2 of drawing with Mr. Van Auken!

What I noticed this year is that Tommy draws bottom up (starts with the hips and feet, draws out rest of structure before placing head), while a lot of other people (noobs?) I've watched draw figures like to start with the head. I guess if an alien species that had never seen humans before tried to draw a human, they might also start with the feet/bottom structure, because it makes the most logical sense to draw how something stands before you draw what balances on top of it (like you wouldn't draw a multi layered cake by drawing the candles on top first). Maybe the reason why we start with the head when commonly drawing people and animals is because that's where our eyes are drawn first, and it's kind of what our brains think is the most important.

Drawing with Mr. Van Auken has also opened my eyes to this tension between what you see and what you know. The gap between what's we think is there and what is actually there is usually wider than we think, and being aware of this gap can sometimes improve the likeness of our drawings. And "likeness" doesn't always have to pertain to the factual, physical appearance of something; an object's "likeness" can also be its energy or emotion, which often can't really be caught with a camera.