/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

[Anonymous No.4248011]

Do profesional artists and by professional I mean old masters, when they were doing stuff from imagination, did they draw the bones and muscles and other studies like folds before attempting the real drawing?

[Anonymous No.4248050]

Of course. Look up "michelangelo study for" or "raphael study for" etc and you will see their sketches and janky (for a master) practice work.
harder to find explicit construction of boxes and cylinders but if you watch karl gnass, vilppu or steve huston doing a master study they will show you the underlying structure that the masters put into their figures and it is full of boxes, cylinders and spheres.

[Anonymous No.4248056]

>>4248050
Whoops I misread bones and muscles as boxes and cylinders somehow.
But pretty much every master drawing is an anatomy study and you can see them practicing folds and hands for example in pic related.

[Anonymous No.4249165]

[Anonymous No.4249222]

>>4248050
I’m sick of the old master construction meme. There is NO evidence at all that they constructed figures, and what little we do know is that they used live models as reference.
Their drawings showing form has literally nothing to do with construction, the human body shows form, Huston &co show you form on photographs, that doesn’t mean the photographer constructed the fucking figures. This shit is fucking retarded, and no more grounded in reality than Mattei tracing over old masters to show they used MUH FORCE to draw. You could probably figure out how to replicate the Mona Lisa by overlapping banana shapes, that does not mean Leonardo Di Caprio constructed it with bananas.

[Anonymous No.4249286]

^
An entire post of "NOOOOO THEY DOOONTTT"
Utterly worthless.

[Anonymous No.4249359]

>>4249165
Turns out aphantasia was real after all

[Anonymous No.4249380]

>>4249222
They didn’t use construction, they just happen to simplify the forms and anatomy into basic shapes...

[Anonymous No.4249393]

>>4249286
>NOOOO you can’t prove Leyendecker DIDN’T use Force™ Drawing®, and I don’t need to provide any evidence to my claims because it lends credibility to my teachings and helps me sell books!
Ok, fag.

>>4249380
Not sure if sarcastic, but construction is a process, not end result. You don’t need to construct figures for them to have form. Let’s say you drew a head using the Reilly method, but then I come around and trace a loomis head on top of the head you drew. It will fit because it’s a fucking head, but it doesn’t mean that is the process you used.

This isn’t an argument against construction, I use construction, but that doesn’t mean some guy centuries ago did when no evidence exists to support it.

[Anonymous No.4249660]

>>4249393
Construction and forceTM are just methods to get students to think about form and gesture.

If you are going to draw anything 3 dimensional believably you inherently think in terms of sides. There aren't tons of pages of old masters drawing boxes or doing gesture stickmen but they definitely thought in terms of gesture and form.
When I identify the ends of the thorasic arch, I am thinking in terms of sides, I am seeing the corners of a box of the rib cage. I am identifying front and side planes with anatomical landmarks.
Same as when I mark the iliac crest I am thinking in terms of sides, I am seeing the box shape of the pelvis. I am prioritizing my markmaking to communicate 3d form to the viewer.

When I consciously avoid symmetry and design my lines to curve in aid of an action line or flow through the anatomy, contrary to what I might actuall see on the model, I am thinking in terms of gesture.

I don't have to draw an actual box manakin underdrawing or the line of action/forceTM arrows to think about form and gesture.

The old masters definitely thought in form and gesture, they were obviously inspired by real life and the human body but they simplified, abstracted and made design decisions to capture a clearer communication of the figure and its story/action than even a photograph could show you.

[Anonymous No.4249751]

>>4249222

At first I was put off by your pessimism, but I do think you have a point here. I've been drawing since I was a little kid and when it was still an "instinct" to me I always drew everything as it is, no construction. Only when I became a teenager I started seeing all the tutorials and books about construction and while these exercises DID help me with polishing my internal "eye" for perspective and form, my constructed figures were always inferior to these drawn with no sketch underneath. I stopped doing this and to this day I don't construct at all.

What I want to say is that I'm convinced construction is just an exercise and drawing with no construction is definitely the natural, organic way. Construction helps you develop perspective, form, proportions. But once you learn what it has to offer, you just use these skills in drawing, I don't see the point of constructing human figure every time if I can get it right on first try. I don't see the point in sperging over all these books and video courses, I feel like instead of wasting time on them it's better to just draw and learn from mistakes.

[Anonymous No.4249769]

>>4249751
You were doing so well until the last line. The point of construction and all these fundamental exercises and abstractions is so that you can quickly and accurately break down anything into line/shape/form/value/color and when it filters through your brain it comes out clearly how you intended it to be.
You do repetitive exercises to internalize the technical details of your craft until they are intuitive.
See this summary of "Numbers to leave numbers" from The Art of Learning: https://theartoflearningproject.org/resources/advanced-learning/numbers-to-leave-numbers/

[Anonymous No.4249779]

>>4249660
I don’t disagree but “thinking in form/structure” =/= constructing a figure. Even I have reached a point where construction is unnecessary most of the time, and I have no doubt the point could be reached without ever using construction, but rather through mileage and observation. Note also that planes are just an intrinsic part of studying value and lighting. Cambiaso is not only a century away from when most “old masters” were active, but his “boxy” sketches is just simplified lighting planning.

Again, I am not bringing structure into question. I am just not at all convinced the actual process of construction is some traditional 500 year old re-emerging technique and not just a more structured, modern approach to drawing that is more appealing to most people because it’s more scientific and replicable, as opposed to borderline occultism of art academia that it replaced.

As for gesture, that is a pointless debate, as even in the post-Nicolaides context, there is 0 uniform understanding of what gesture even is beyond “lol movement”, while it is somehow distinct from croquis and the like. It feels like “secret trick to art” marketing bandwagon.

[Anonymous No.4249787]

>>4249751
construction is important do all your studies with construction, box them, draw the pelvis ind 100 different angles and you will see how much you are able to draw it out of your mind on a acceptable level.

[Anonymous No.4249818]

>>4249779
Just to clarify are you talking about invented figures or observational drawings? Construction is completely unnecessary for observational drawing but I would argue it is impossible to invent figures without an abstraction method, be that construction or manakins or sculpting maquettes.
Speaking of sculpting, "blocking in" is so intrinsic to sculpting that I find it hard to believe the old masters didn't use similar methods for drawing and painting.

[Anonymous No.4249831]

>>4249393
classical artists would construct form on top of form rhythmically working down the figure multiple times idealizing the figure, normally drawing ovals to keep things flowing. You can clearly see how Michael Angelo constructed the forearm with a box and an oval, you can clearly see him construct the muscle on top of his basic forms.

[Anonymous No.4249863]

>>4249818
Invented. Once you internalise the human figure there really isn’t much to drawing it without reference. Personally I’d say drapery is an order of magnitude more demanding, but that might just be me.
Not sure why you’d think it impossible, it’s not a rarity to see people pull figures out of their ass.

Speaking more generally, I honestly think the method is irrelevant, eventually it just clicks. When I was learning, I’d commit some time to each method, whether it was construction, vilppu gesture, mannequin, paper skating, blocking in with a chamois and whatever else I found and literally every single one made sense in its own way after a while and gave consistent results as long as I stuck with it. Sometimes I look at my old drawings and have no idea how I did it, I completely fell out of touch with those techniques. I feel like construction is just something useful because it’s easy to explain and relies less on tactile feedback, muscle memory or instinct than some other methods.

>>4249831
You’re projecting. The presence of structure is in no way indicative of construction. Construction is assembly of the figure through simple forms, from the general to the specific.if you actually look at the sketch of the arm and shoulder girdle on the left, you can clearly see he used no forms whatsoever and just sketched the outline of the arm. It is far more likely that the next step was sculpting the form as seen in the shoulder, the proceeding to use value to achieve full surface mapping as in the bigger sketch. Note also the toes on the right having no construction.
Forms =/= construction
You may as well see the dynamic pose and claim Michelangelo started with a Vilppu-tier gesture because clearly how else could you get a dynamic pose?

[Anonymous No.4249904]

>>4249863
Same anon, I just find it very strange that so many people insist there is some tried and true or “right” way to make art and you can’t conceivably draw something without constructing it out of boxes and spheres.
Pic related is III century AD. You can clearly see the forms and structure (as far as the mosaic allows), you can see the separation of muscle heads in the deltoid, you can even see the structure of the forearm. Is it so inconceivable that they didn’t construct and achieved this through observation and through learning sculpting (which is traditionally taught along painting to art students)?

[Anonymous No.4249907]

>>4249904
Pic related dates to ~50 BCE, you can still clearly see forms and good gesture will upload a detail shot next

[Anonymous No.4249914]

>>4249907
Note the planes of the glutes, theconnection of calves into thighs, the connection of neck into head and the head angle, the feet and ankles

[Anonymous No.4249923]

The old masters used their cock as a ruler for construction lines.
You can tell how fucked up their penises were by how straight their lines are.

[Anonymous No.4249962]

>>4249863
If you can’t see how he constructed then you need to do more construction, you can clearly see he drew a basic forearm then attached a hand to it, then connected fingers onto the hand on the right, he literally wrapped a contour line around the wrist. You can clearly see he’s built the deltoid on top of the arms. Go watch Vilppu classical approach to drawing.
>>4249904
There is no form to this, it is very flat and I highly doubt he used construction especially since perspective doesn’t date that far back. So there is a very high chance he wouldn’t have used boxes and spheres

[Anonymous No.4249972]

>>4249962
>can literally see the contour drawing
>can literally see the count our drawing of the leg with multiple lines and no forms whatsoever
>i-it’s construction, if you can’t see it, you can’t draw!
Ok

[Anonymous No.4250036]

>>4249962
>There is no form to this
What do you mean?