Figure Drawing For All It’s Worth
•July 12, 2007 • 1 CommentI’ve recently discovered the book “Figure Drawing For All It’s Worth” by Andrew Loomis. Loomis was a prominent American commercial illustrator in the 40’s and 50’s and published a number of art instruction books. This is a real gem for anyone interested in drawing the human figure. While there are plenty of “Anatomy For Artists” books around, Loomis also offers invaluable, practical techniques for constructing scenes from imagination: Proportion and placement in relation to the horizon, positioning figures in perspective and much more. I found that in the first few pages, Loomis had solved many of the problems I regularly struggle with, and I’ve still only scratched the surface of his methods. The book is also full of Loomis’ beautiful drawings. (Even if they do look a little dated , 65 years on. Men were men and women were women back in ‘43…)
As far as I know, the book is out of print. I managed to find a lovely early hardback edition on Ebay. I’ve seen used versions on Amazon too. Pages from the book, as well as links to lots of great online anatomy reference, can be found here.
