8 Head Rule

Drawing with Katrinka (Week3)

Today’s morning session was held with Katrinka whose aim was to teach us basic figure drawing while using an 8 head rule.  We started by sketching out the simple outline of the human body, drawing in lines for they neck, shoulders, nipples, belly button, bend line, knee & ankle lines.  This ties in nicely with the proportion work of the last few weeks.

** SCAN IMAGE FROM SKETCH BOOK***

Apparently fashion students employ a 9^th head that is shown in the lower half of the body to signify a longer taller thin line of the body.

We quickly moved towards stick figure drawing where we were trying to capture the basic line of the figure in various poses. Although this sounds simple it really made you focus on the line of the body and how it was posed. Translating this onto paper was tricky and the easiest way to visualize a pose was to ‘strike’ the pose yourself.  I had a little success with this and enjoyed the task. We have been assigned a variety of poses/moods that we need to capture over the Easter break. These include…

Standing /Running/ Falling/Leaning/Ninja/Happy/Miserable/ Proud/Scary/Frightened & Sitting.  In each sketch I should look to get the proportion & weight distribution correct!

Working on from the stick figure we looked to block out the figure using a selection of basic shapes.  These would focus on squares, oblongs (legs) circles (joints)

Each sketch needed to show a ‘centre of gravity’ point and a ‘contact’ point.

*** INCLUDE SCANS from the Sketch Book!

Finally we introduced ‘single point’ perspective or ‘one point’ perspective on a ‘vanishing line’

Another fundamental that helps with ‘foreshortening’ & was demonstrated by using a figure sitting at a desk. I found this a little tricky and need to work on this if I am to show any improvement. It was great to work in a small group and now having worked with Katrinka over a few weeks, a feel for her style of teaching.

The simple rule of the 1 perspective was to emphasise the foreshortening and so the nearer the item to you the wider it is in the drawing.