How to Draw a Live Model
Life drawing is a common practice in the art world. Having attended an art school, I had 5/6 hours of life drawing every week, not to mention anatomy, because the two go hand in hand. In this article, I will show you how to properly represent and draw a life model.
BUT WHAT IS THE LIVING MODEL?
Live model drawing is a practice that involves drawing a person who is posing, usually nude, right before our eyes.
This is a very good exercise for reproducing reality and understanding the human body.
It is more difficult to draw using a live model than a photograph, because the photograph is stationary, whereas the model is a human being that needs to move and cannot hold poses for too long.
The longest pose I ever had in class was for 1 hour. So, in 1 hour, you need to produce a complete and faithful drawing. That might sound easy, but getting the perfect proportions, then the curves and lines just right, and finally adding the shadows and highlights, or even adding color, all within 1 hour, can be stressful. That's why life drawing is not a very easy practice.
Generally, the poses are rather short, ranging from 30 seconds to 5 minutes, which is just enough time to capture the intention of the pose. It's this kind of exercise that helps you improve. And if at the beginning, in 30 seconds, you don't even have time to make a mark, with practice, you'll be able to outline a silhouette. This type of exercise prevents the student from having time to hesitate and therefore unnecessarily waste time. You are forced to observe the model, to memorize them, and to quickly sketch out the pose.
My teacher often said that we should draw without looking at our paper, that we should be able to reproduce the model by coordinating our eyes and pencils.
At the beginning, we used to produce drawings that looked like anything but a human body, but by the end of the year, we were able to produce a drawing with a pose that was understandable. Sometimes our drawings turned out even better than when we could look at the sheet.
In short, there are many exercises that can be done with a life model.
But why combine life modeling and anatomy? Simply because knowing anatomy allows for a better understanding of the life model and vice versa.
To draw a human body correctly, you need to know it by heart, both externally and internally!
Often, the model poses nude to allow us to clearly see the lines of the body formed by the muscles and bones.
A clothed model would be of no interest except for studying the folds of clothing.
Let's get down to business.
I couldn't get a real model for this article, so I'll start with a photo.
Remember that you can practice with photos if you don't have a live model workshop in your area. It's not the best, but it's better than nothing!
PRACTICING LIVE MODEL DRAWING FROM A PHOTO
For this exercise, I chose this photo:
The pose is very interesting, there are curves and breaks everywhere - everything that is interesting to draw.
If you prefer to train with a man's body, you can do that too.
And don't hesitate to draw lots of different bodies: young, old, small, tall, fat, thin... Each body is different and brings its own set of things to draw!
Let's get started without further delay!
Before drawing, you have to learn to take measurements. While the more experienced among you may be able to measure your model by eye, you beginners will struggle to do so.
And not taking measurements risks making the drawing too small on the paper or too big, leaving you with not enough space to draw everything.
You will only need your pencil to take your measurements.
Stand facing the subject, with your arm fully extended and one eye closed.
Align the tip of the pencil with the highest point of your model and lower your thumb along the pencil until it aligns with the lowest point of the model (or if the size is too large, take an essential point as a reference).
Your first measurement on the pencil will serve as the base.
By turning your pencil 90°, you can take horizontal measurements in the same way.
Next, choose how to record your measurements:
- Either you can transfer them directly onto your sheet, to draw at the scale you see, but generally, the drawing will be too small.
- Or you can adapt the base measurement to the size of your sheet by multiplying it by the appropriate number (x1.5, x2, x3...).
DRAWING THE MODEL STEP BY STEP
Now that you know how to take measurements, let's get started!
I will start my drawing by placing the model's head on my paper.
With the measures I have taken, I will roughly place the elements, but at the correct sizes.
With my pencil, I will measure each separate element to get the correct thickness and height. I will correct any mistakes in my initial measurement estimates.
I will draw the model's body using only simple shapes, without details. There is an article about drawing a woman's body. Since it's related to the human body theme, this might interest you :)
I will start to adjust my shapes and give them more flexibility and precision.
In fact, I will use the sculptor's technique. I will first draw a mass with massive and hard shapes and then sculpt and remove material to soften everything.
I will continue to sculpt my shape and define the final forms of the body without dwelling on the details. I will draw the whole before moving on to the small details.
I will be careful not to make the joints too flimsy.
Remember that a bone is hard and sharp. If you make shapes too soft in areas where bones are visible, your drawing will be soft and unconvincing.
I will start to add some details like folds and hollows, but without dwelling on anything too much.
Everything will be accentuated with shadows and highlights.
I will work on the face, placing the eyes, the nose, and the mouth.
I will finish by drawing the hair.
ADDING COLOR AND SHADOWS
My line drawing is finished; I will now add shadows and highlights to make my drawing more realistic.
I'm going to go with shades of yellow/orange, but you can choose any color you want or even go with shades of gray.
I will start by covering my drawing with a light color.
Now here's a little tip to avoid casting more shadows than necessary.
Squint at your model. This will blur your vision and bring out all the contrasts. The darkest areas are the shadows that you can draw. Those that you do not see are unnecessary and will overload your drawing more than anything else. And do the same thing for the highlights.
It's possible that sometimes your model does not have a bright light appearing when you squint. This is normal as our skin is not a metallic bodywork that reflects light. So, if you don't see any highlights, don't add them as they will give your drawing a plastic effect!
Now that you have the technique, try it out...
I will add a few touches of a slightly more pronounced yellow in the areas where the shadows end.
With an even darker and brighter yellow, I will complete my shadows and add them where needed.
I always deepen my shadows gradually and I don't blend them in order to maintain a sharp and realistic appearance.
I will finish with my darkest color to accentuate the heavily shaded, almost black areas. For consistency with my color palette, I will stick with a rather light brown/orange, but you can go darker.
As the woman's hair is brown, I will make it darker than the skin.
Your drawing is finished!
A little tip to know if your shadows are successful:
We can guess what you have drawn even without the features...
If we can understand your drawing from the shadows, even just a little bit, without necessarily seeing all the details, but just by the defining overall shapes, it means your shadows are well placed and your drawing is successful! :)
Illustrator and writer: Coralie