Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Eye Studies Part 1 - John Vanderpoel, "The Human Figure"

Since it was Mark Kennedy's post on John Vanderpoel's "The Human Figure" that got me started on my eye studies, I thought that would be the most logical place to start.

Although Vanderpoel's book isn't necessarily a how-to-draw-it book, it goes into great detail about the anatomy of the eye, as well as the structure of the eye socket and the muscles that surround the "orbit" as he calls it. As Mark pointed out, understanding Vanderpoel's descriptions sometimes requires multiple readings, but it's well worth it. He wants the reader to be able to visualize not just the physical aspects of the eye structure, but how shadow and light affect its appearance. Reading this was a little bit like reading philosophy in college - I'd read a passage over and over until I fully understood it. Believe me, it opened my eyes, so to speak.

Here are some eye studies based on Vanderpoel's drawings.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is another web site you might want to look into and follow: www.frobnosticate.com.

I met his website while looking up stuff on Graydon Parrish.

This artist is doing the Barque plates. Check out the anatomical online series that he is going to be doing. The course is too expensive for me, but for someone like you and him, it might not be, cause you guys are realists.