the
Drawing
Newsletter
February 2005
An interesting question I often get asked by prospective students
is; Which is better: studying in a class-room or from the Master-
ing Portrait Drawing DVD workshop?
There are pros and cons to both. As a teacher who has taught for
many years in the classroom I am well aware of the limitations
of the classroom, or studio, environment. First, there is the time
limitation. The course material must be presented in the number
of hours allotted for the course, whether that be 18, 24, or 36
hours. If you missed, or did not understand a lecture, there simply
is not sufficient time to re-present it. At most, a quick review will
have to do.
1-800-427-2468
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Michael R. Britton
Also, most students need to take a course at least a few times to start
getting a grasp of the skills and knowledge required, while others choose
to take the course every semester to continually improve their skill under
the guidance of a master artist which can be very costly in both time and
money. That s all well and good as long as you live in a major artistic
centre that has a master artist teaching realist portraiture and you can get
a space in the class.
Many of you have a passion and drive for art and drawing and want to learn
correctly at a serious level, but live in small towns or cities or countries
that just don t offer classical realist courses of study, or even, just a good
portrait class. So that is the real beauty of our DVD workshops and
newsletters. We have people studying the workshops up on remote weather
stations in the Arctic, and we have had several people buy them who are
heading off on holiday or to live overseas and want to continue studying
while they are gone, not to mention people who are housebound or who
have small children or work obligations who just can t make it to a 3
hour class.
With the DVD workshop you can replay and study a particular lecture at
your convenience as often as you need, until it is fully understood, at one
low cost. The convenience, the cost, the lifetime reference material, the
privacy, and the unique content of Artacademy.com s DVD s can certainly
be an essential part of your learning arsenal, because very few teachers,
books or videos currently cover this valuable material.
With a DVD Workshop some people worry about the lack of direct teacher/
student interaction. This was one of my prime concerns with the feasibility
of putting out a workshop on DVD. But the results coming in from students
studying from the DVDs has been more than I thought would be possible
and has been incredibly gratifying as a teacher. In a class situation you
really don t get more than 30 seconds to a few minutes with the teacher
while they try to see everyone s work and make the rounds and that can
be frustrating for both the teacher and student. That s why I filmed and
structured the DVD s just as though it were a private lesson from me to
you.
The fact is the DVD s cover the material in a succinct logical sequence
that I don t have time to cover in a workshop or course with all the chatter
and interruptions which often consume a large portion of a class. Every
conceivable question has already been answered and if there is something
extra you are not sure of just fire me a quick email. This is like my
dream class, the opportunity to cover everything I have always wanted
to cover in the classroom but which usually takes quite a few semesters
of courses to get through, (which is another reason people keep taking
the course).
But here s the very real issue. To really learn portraiture well you should
ideally be drawing from life a substantial portion of the time. Drawing
from a photograph is only a substitute, although it is better not drawing.
Not having a  live model to work from as you would have in a class-
room is not an ideal learning situation. This can be easily rectified by
asking your family or friends to sit for you, doing self portraits in a
mirror (think of how many Vincent Van Gogh did), or hiring a model if
you prefer. Find an artist friend(s) to have drawing sessions with and
take turns drawing each other or share the cost of a model or join a
life-drawing group in your area.
Working from life the classroom is not always an ideal situation either,
especially if you are in the far corner of the class-room peering through
a forest of easels trying to catch a glimpse of the model. Also, when the
instructor is demonstrating (which they should be!) only a few students
will be able to see the same view that the instructor is drawing from. For
example, the instructor may be demonstrating a full, frontal portrait but
if you are seated off to the side you will see the model in a profile view.
And that s a different lesson. This isn t the case in the DVD Workshop,
you see the model in exactly the same view that I do.
Another issue is that to significantly improve your portrait drawing you
must know the anatomy of the head. That s the skull and the musculature.
Well, about a month ago, I found the manufacturer of my favorite skull
while doing research on the internet. Most manufacturers only sell to
whole-salers and distributors, but I called them anyway and asked if
they would be willing to sell directly to artists and art-students. And
they said yes. And before long I had a whole new Anatomical Supply
division added to my web-site (www.artacademy.com).
Classic Human Skull
$90 + shipping
Human Skull with Cervical
Vertebrae with Stand
$198 + shipping
The skull that I use is the Human Skull with Cervical Vertebrae.
When I originally purchased mine, about 6 years ago and paid
$278! it came without a stand. I had to make my own stand.
Fortunately, it now comes with a stand which makes it ideal
for drawing. (If you choose to buy the less-expensive Classic
Human Skull you can make your own stand.)
The very real benefit of drawing from a good skull is that you
are drawing from  life and learning the anatomy simultaneously.
Nothing, but nothing, will improve your portrait drawing skills
faster than drawing from the skull. Draw it in full frontal, 3/4,
7/8 s profile. Set up your light in as many variations as you can
possibly think of.
However, avoid drawing from a novelty or cheap, knock-off
skull. They are poorly proportioned and detailed and will only
re-inforce your symbolic preconceptions. Thus doing more harm
than good.
Now how to draw the skull.
For more details visit our new Anatomical Supplies for
Artists section. Just click on the skeleton!
Drawing the Skull  Part 1
To gain the maximum benefit
your drawing should be life-
size, approximately 10 from
the top of the skull (the calvar-
ium) to the bottom of the chin
(the mental tubercle).
Begin by striking the arabesque
using straight, architectonically
sound lines. Don t premeasure
the width, just take your best
guess. This is how you train
your eye to assess proportion.
The images used in this article are
still-frames from the Drawing the Skull
DVD.
Once you have struck your initial arabesque you then
need to verify its accuracy. To do this  sight the width
of the skull by holding your pencil horizontally at arm s
length (elbows locked!) so that the point of your pencil
is at the far edge of the forehead and adjust your thumb
on the pencil so that it is at the back of the skull.
Keeping your elbow locked and without moving your
thumb, turn the pencil so that it is perpendicular and
your thumb is now at the bottom of the chin at the
mental tubercle. Note where your pencil point is now.
It will be a small distance below the top of the skull.
You now need to take your best possible guess at where that point is
below the top of the skull. It takes practice and training (Mastering
Portrait Drawing goes into the particulars of sighting indepth), but the
assumption here is that you will better adjudge a small, short distance
than a long one. Always use the shortest measure!
Now check that the proportions of your drawn arabesque correlate to
these measures and make whatever corrections are necessary.
Once the correct proportions of the ara-
besque have been established, the critical
landmark of the skull (or portrait) must be
placed. That is the brow ridge (the supra-
orbital eminence, or prominence) which is
highlighted here in neon green.
Again, take your best guess at where you
believe the brow ridge to be then check it
by sighting.
First sight from the mental tubercle to the
a point on the brow ridge (your choosing,
but you have to stick with it). Now raise
your pencil so that your thumb is now
on your point on the brow ridge and
note where your pencil point is. It
should be a small distance above the
top of the skull.
Mark on your drawing where you
can best place that point above the
skull. This is called the  check point .
Again, the smallest measured distance
will be the more accurate. Your point
on the brow ridge should, if it was
placed correctly, be exactly halfway
between the mental tubercle and your
check point. If it isn t  then correct
the placement of your brow ridge.
Now you can fix the width of the
face. In the 3/4 view the hinge of
the jaw (condyle) is the critical land-
mark. Again, take your best guess
then check by sighting horizontally
from the condyle to the far edge of
the cheek bone (zygomatic arch) and
vertically relating that measure from
the mental tubercle.
From my view point, that measure takes
me up from the mental tubercle to the top
of the bilateral nasal bone. Since we have
already established the brow ridge we now
only have to estimate a small distance to fix
the top of the nasal bone.
If you placed the condyle correctly, it
should equal the measure from mental
tubercle to nasal bone. If you re off a bit,
then correct the placement of the condyle.
Always assume that the short distance esti-
mated is the correct one!
Now that the primary elements of propor-
tioned and placed you can further work
out the arabesque. I find it best to further
resolve only the back, least intricate, part
of the skull at this early stage.
Before placing the internal elements of
the skull s face you need to establish the
facial angle which is the center line of the
face. Draw a slightly arcing line from the
middle of the mental tubercle up through
the center of the brow ridge. The place-
ment of the facial angle is very important.
You have to feel your way through this as
there is no way to accurately measure it.
Once the facial angle is established
continue resolving the arabesque care-
fully observing the shape of the muzzle
(the mouth area), the zygomatic pro-
cess and arch, up through the external
orbital apophysis to the forehead.
Now we re ready to map the size
and placements of the skulls face and
teeth. The will be covered in Part 2
in the March issue of The Drawing
Newsletter.