THE BEGINNING

I believe that it's inevitable that we find plateaus in our lives. Our first, knee jerk reaction is to panic.
After we settle ourselves, we attempt to ratiocinate our circumstance and find meaning or a temporary distraction in our lives.
I tend to use hobbies as effective distractions from pre-mid life crisis and have enriched my life with everything from learning new languages, volunteerism, martial arts to figure drawing.

Figure drawing stuck. It's become the most effective way to relieve stress in practice and challenge the brain in learning.

Figure drawing is an exercise in drawing the human body in its various shapes and positions.
"Life drawing" is the process of drawing the human figure from observation of a live model. I sincerely believe that this discipline is arguably the most difficult subject an artist commonly encounters. Every artists has some experience in figure drawing. I believe that it trains the eye to capture emotions and the details that create them in the realm of visual arts.

The human figure is one of the most enduring themes in the visual arts, and figure drawing can be applied to portraiture, fashion, cartooning and comic book illustration, sculpture, medical illustration, and other fields that use depictions of the human form. Figure drawing can be done very simply, as in gesture drawing, or in greater detail, using charcoal, pencil or other drawing tools.

In trying to grasp the once vague idea of what defines great figure drawing I researched.
My findings were superabundant.
I was especially inspired by the classical master and modern masters I'll share with my readers. I poured over hundreds of sketches, studies and interpretations to get a glimpse, a sliver of understand of what makes the magic... the x-factor in theses works of art and why our natural instinct is to be attracted to their work.

A list of a few my favorites:

The Classical Masters:

• Leonardo Davinci
  (his skill at representing human physiognomy, and how expressions and gestures reflect emotion, and his use of sfumato to create subtle shading, are what makes him my number one)
  
• Michelangelo Buonarroti
  (responsible for possibly the most spectacular and influential of all figure paintings in the history of art)
  
• Matthias Grunewald
  (his devotional altarpieces set new standards in the depiction of the human body.)
  
• Carravagio
  (My favorite revolutionary naturalist painter and one of the founding members of the Baroque school of art. Best known for his portrayal of biblical characters as ordinary everyday people)
  

Modern Favorites:

• Peter Paul Rubens
  
• JS Sargent
  
• Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn
  
• Sarah Purser
  

I researched the sketchbooks and studies of these Masters. I found magic in form, expression, lines, mood, value.

In the world of fashion illustration I was also able to explore a treasure trove of exaggerated gestures and tone.

Fashion Designers who worshipped human form

• Christian Dior
  
• Givenchy
  
• Yves Saint Laurent
  
• Valentino
  
• Gaultier
  
• Christian Lacroix
  
• Versace
  
• Karl Lagerfeld
  

I'm amazed at how each of these artists deliver a spellbinding impression of the human form in my mind as I reviewed their greatest works.
How one captures a three dimensional, living, breathing, animated, flawed, organic, original subject and transform their highest essence on a 2D plane is magic.

Let Us Explore!