Figure Drawing - Dividing up the Human Body

Another class I am taking is a figure drawing class to strengthen my understanding of the proportions of the human body. After a few years of drawing pretty much nothing but geometric shapes and other forms that make up products, I am a bit rusty. This will be a good refresher course.

There was one assignment previous to this that I decided not to post because of its mundane nature: we had to draw a cylinder as we rotated it around 360°. Not that exciting. Of course, neither is this, but it is a fundamental exercise.

I have a 38" tall cast of a woman that I had to buy for this class. It sure beats trying to line up a nude model to come to your apartment in Provo. Plus she can stand in a single pose for a LONG time. Hopefully I won't get too sick of using her, but so far, I can see the advantage of having such a tool around. For this assignment, I had to move it into different perspectives and viewpoints and analyze it, breaking it up into different basic geometric shapes. As you will see, I didn't pay that much attention to proportion, so the drawings are a little skiddywumpus, but that just means I get to practice more later. The purpose of this is to get the gesture, or the dominant visual lines, down, helping to establish the weight of the drawing. As I said, I need to practice a lot more, but for now, here it is: