"Vegetables Are All Your Body Needs", advertisement for the International Vegetarian Union

Most figurative artists spend some time studying human anatomy – basic musculoskeletal structure, often just enough that your Spider-Man doesn’t come out looking like Popeye.  But of course the study of anatomy is a vast edifice, with wings and annexes, great halls and obscure corridors, constructed by physicians and yogis, gymnasts and psychiatrists, animators and masseurs, mystics and coroners.  Let’s call this imposing monument the Anatomium.

For an artist, the body is more than just a physical structure.  It is an instrument for experiencing and portraying realities beyond the physical plane:  emotions, energy, spirituality.  We need to understand structure, but we also need to go beyond structure.  Your teacher may have urged you to spend most of your time studying in the great hall of bones and the gallery of muscles, but there is much to discover in the more obscure rooms of the Anatomium.  Let’s look at some curious specimens found in many different parts of the labyrinthine palace, from the viewpoint of the artist.  (All of these images were found on the web, and clicking on an image will take you to the page where I found it, and where, usually, more pictures and information will be found.)

The brilliant ad that leads this post tells us that if we are what we eat, we can construct a healthy body from a vegetable diet.  In folk wisdom, it’s often been thought that various plants and other substances support the functioning of the body parts they resemble, so for instance walnuts are supposed to be good for the brain, and tomatoes for the heart.  This way of seeing the anatomy arises from a metaphorical understanding of the body as a garden or landscape, a popular image since the time of Arcimboldo, at least.  Here’s Aurel Schmidt’s beautiful contemporary rendition of body as garden, a teeming but unsettling garden full of insects, snakes, birds, and cigarette butts.

Super Natural, 2006, mixed media on paper by Aurel Schmidt

Since the industrial revolution, the metaphor of the body as a factory or machine has been common in the culture.  A lot of medical practice, especially orthopedics, is essentially based in this mechanical metaphor.  Perhaps the ultimate realization of the industrial view of the body is Woody Allen’s depiction of the internal sexual functions as a military-industrial deployment in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask.

Der Mensch als Industriepalast (Man as Industrial Palace), 1926, by Fritz Kahn

The technology of the industrial and digital era has given us countlesss new ways of seeing and studying the human body.  X-rays, MRIs, and endoscopes have become essential tools in medicine.  The National Institutes of Health and the National Medical Library collaborated on the “Visible Human Project”, high-resolution 3D scans of real bodies for anatomical study.  The bodies were sliced in razor-thin layers and scanned, the data assembled into a 3D image that can be viewed in any cross-section or in the round, or even “flown through” in a digital animation.

Coronal cross-section from the Visible Human Project of the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health

Controversial physician and showman Dr. Gunther von Hagens invented a technique for preserving human tissue by replacing the water  with plastics, which enabled him to prepare real cadavers for public display in his “Body Worlds” exhibits.  Von Hagens’ figures follow the renaissance convention in anatomical illustrations of posing flayed figures as though alive and active.  These exhibits are educational, fascinating, and more than a little creepy.

The Walker, plastinated from Body Worlds exhibit, from Gunther von Hagens' Institute for Plastination

Therapists, athletes, dancers, and others who study movement, posture, and fitnesss experiment with the living body, which can reveal dynamic aspects of the structure that may be missed when you’re cutting up cadavers.  This illustration from Thomas Myers’ Anatomy Trains, a study of the fascia and connective tissue in bodily movement, looks like a bit of couture in the outré style of an Alexander McQueen.

The Back Functional Line, illustration from "Anatomy Trains", by Thomas W. Myers

The illustration below shows the dermatomes.  Most of the nerves of the body are wired to the spinal cord, and the dermatomes are the areas of the skin divided according to the particular vertebra where each area has its nerve connection to the spinal cord.  The different areas of the spine are color-coded, cervical (neck) nerves in white, thoracic in yellow/black, lumbar in blue/black, and sacral nerves in red/black.  This too looks like a bit of latex fetishwear or a high-tech superhero costume.

Dermatomes (Spinal Innervation Map), artist unknown, from the website of New York School of Regional Anesthesia

Within the field of anatomical studies, there are many ways of dividing the body into regions.  Here’s a diagram for doctors with named regions on the surface of the body, for the purposes of clinical description.

Anatomical Regions of the Body, illustration from David Darling's online "Encyclopedia of Science"

“Surface Anatomy” is an interesting field for the artist who works with live models, as it’s all about learning to identify underlying structures based on what can be seen or felt at the level of the skin.

Surface Anatomy of the Abdomen, from "The Anatomy Lesson", a website by Wesley Norman, PhD, DSc, professor at Georgetown University

Seeing beneath the surface shows that the beautiful reality of the body conceals even more beautiful hidden realities.

Pregnant Anatomy, illustration found on Ed Merritt's Flickr photostream (may not be original source)

These back muscles look like the head of a goat – cool.

The Back,iIllustration by Phrenzy84

The illustration below shows a method of analyzing the structure of the face by geometrical analysis of a series of identifiable points.  This kind of analysis was invented for forensic use, but it’s also the basis of computer face recognition and other forms of digital biometrics.

Illustration from "Geometric Morphometric Analyses of Facial Shape in Twins", a paper by Demayo, et al.

This kind of geometrical analysis of faces and bodies is also important to artists working with digitally generated 3D graphics.  Some of the most interesting anatomy illustrations, from an artist’s point of view, are found in CGI tutorials.

Illustration from Phung Dinh Dzung's "Realistic Human Face Modeling", a guide for 3D computer graphic artists

Here’s a look at the different typical patterns of fat distribution on the male and female body.  It’s a fine illustration, although that male figure looks disconcertingly like me!  These sketches derive from works by Prud’hon and Rubens.

Fat Distribution in Women and Men, illustration from an online anatomy and figure drawing tutorial by Nocte

This one compares the basic skeletal structure of a person with that of a four-legged animal such as a dog.  I think the best way to grasp anatomical realities is to see how the same basic structure manifests with variations in different individuals and even different species.  You can learn a lot about anatomy just petting an animal!

Comparison of Human and Quadruped Skeletons, source unknown

In this illustration, an artist shows how different arrangements of the shoulder girdle express different emotions.

Shoulder Movements of Psychological Description, source unknown

The brain contains its own models of the body.  The sensory cortex and the motor cortex are bands of the human brain devoted to the senses and to movment, respectively.  When the image of the body is projected to correspond with the appropriate parts of the brain, the resulting distorted figure is called a “homunculus” (latin for “little human”).  The homunculus, the body in the brain, has huge lips and hands, since those areas are so important for sensation and action.  Note that the hand area is right next to the eye area – perhaps this facilitates the connections a visual artist makes.  And the genitalia area is right next to the feet – an explanation for foot fetishism?

Somatosensory Homunculus, artist unknown

Many forms of traditional therapy use this kind of mapping of the whole body onto a part of the body.  Auricular acupuncture, for example, is a form of acupuncture in which the ear stands in for the whole body, and practitioners believe that any part of the body can be treated by needling the corresponding parts of the ear.  Reflexology massage of the feet and hands is another treatment that uses similar charts.

Indian Hand Reflexology Illustration, original source unknown

Of course these aren’t anatomical studies in the scientific sense, but the ancient energy arts, including qigong and tantric yoga and many kinds of martial and healing arts, are based on extensive experiential study of energy flow in the body.  Understanding the immaterial but dynamic aspects of the body should interest any artist who strives to capture the feeling of aliveness.  Here’s an unknown artist’s attempt to represent the human aura, the field of energy clairvoyants say they can perceive around the body.

Human Aura, artist unknown

Chinese Traditional Medicine, martial arts and practices of “internal alchemy” aimed at physical or spiritual self-transformation, use a highly developed system of subtle anatomy to understand the movement of many different kinds of energy within and around the body.  For a visual artist, but even more for a performing artist, this way of visualizing and projecting emotions and forces can be a powerful tool.

Psycho-Emotional Aspects of the Liver Channel, from a website on the energy channels of acupuncture theory, by Lieske

Going back to scientific medical imaging, but keeping the emphasis on energy flow, we have thermographic imaging, which shows patterns of heat radiating from the body.   (Check out a brief excerpt from a dance film made with high-resolution thermographic cameras.)

Thermogram of the Breast, original source unknown

For an artist, the most subtle part of the human form, the most difficult thing to capture, is the spark, the life force, the flow of energy.  It’s important to understand structure, but it’s also important to see the dynamism and tension within that structure.  Anatomical studies of all kinds can open our eyes to the amazing tornado of different forces that is the human body.

I’ll conclude this post with a traditional medical anatomical illustration, but one of great beauty.   This is an abstraction, not a visual transcription of reality.  Of course the veins aren’t really blue and the arteries red and the nerves yellow – this is just a convention to aid in a functional understanding of what is going on.  But the life force in all its explosivenesss expresses itself here.

Thoracic Anatomy, 2006, illustration by Patrick J. Lynch

In researching on the web and my own archives for this post, I found such a wealth of incredible anatomical images that I think there will be many posts to come on the general subject of human anatomy.

Nearly all of these images link back, if you click on them, to where I found them on the web.  If any of my readers has further information about the sources or artists behind these images, please let me know.  It is often frustrating to me that so many great images on the web are published without attribution.

Face of the Body, 2011, by Fred Hatt

“Torso” is the art term for a depiction of the human form focused primarily on the trunk of the body rather than the head or limbs.  The word derives from a Greek/Latin word meaning stalk.  It’s a botanical analogy, like its synonym, “trunk”, the core out of which the branches grow.  The Greek root word, thyrsos, denotes the magic wand of the followers of Dionysos, a god of fertility, ecstasy, ritual madness, and theater.  The thyrsos, a fennel rod with a pine cone head, twined with ivy vines, embodies the unruly and indomitable life force.

Nautilus, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The torso often expresses this life force in its ability to twist, though as far as I can determine it is a coincidence that the word torso resembles the word torsion.  Torsion means twisting, and that word is related to the terms torque, torture, and torment.  The torso can express coursing vital energy but also vulnerability, leaping joy and convulsive anguish.

Mesh Fem, 2010, by Fred Hatt

The torso includes the heart and lungs and the organs of digestion and sex.  It is the seat of gut feelings, and of the swellings of erotic desire, hunger, and pride.

Supine Lotus, 2010, by Fred Hatt

We all grow in the womb and find our first nourishment at the breast.  Humans and other mammals crave the feeling of warmth and acceptance that is only felt in an embrace with full body closeness.

Arranged Around the Knee, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The torso is a rich subject for the artist because of its complexity of form, revealing different aspects at different angles of view and in varying relationships to the limbs and head.

Oxbow Hip Curve, 2010, by Fred Hatt

In drawing the body, I always imagine that my hands are feeling it, clasping the waist, holding the ribcage, following the underlying structure of bones and the fibers of muscle, sensitive to the warmth of the body, the expansive tide of the breath and the buzzing of nerves and blood vessels.

Inverted Rest, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The arms and legs thrust or relax outward in various directions, and their long forms create expressive angles, but the origin of the energy expressed by the limbs is always found in the core of the body.

Iliac Power, 2010, by Fred Hatt

My friend Mana Hashimoto, a dancer who is blind, teaches workshops on “Dance Without Sight“.  Part of her workshop involves observing the movement of another person by touch alone.  When I took Mana’s workshop I was struck by how clearly I could  understand all the movements of another person with hands placed gently on the back.  It was impossible to follow a dance by touching the head or extremities, but a hand on the back could feel the movements of all parts of the body, including the head, arms, and legs.

Back and Bottle, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The classic standing pose in figurative sculpture and painting is “contrapposto“.  This generally means the weight of the body is primarily on one leg, causing the pelvis to be tilted, and usually the shoulders are tilted in the opposite direction.  The slight asymmetry that is introduced in this way gives an appearance of liveliness to a still figure.  In practice, there are countless variations on the basic principle of contrapposto, as the ribcage/shoulder girdle and the pelvis can each be shifted or tilted in many directions, and the spine can be arched forward or back, bent to the side, twisted, extended or compressed.

Curved Torso Straight Arm, 2011, by Fred Hatt

Symmetrical poses, however, do not need to appear rigid.  In fact, symmetrical poses can be very relaxed because of their balanced weight. Looking at such a pose from an angle is all it takes to give assymmetry to a drawing, and if the artist’s calm hand follows the calmness of the model, the picture will have a certain serenity.

Balasana, 2011, by Fred Hatt

In a drawing, the body reveals its structure in the form of curves and angles going in various directions.  In the drawing below, note the forward thrust of the shoulder softened by the curling hair, and the rearward angle of the elbow balanced by the point of the breast.

Chair Back, 2010, by Fred Hatt

The outside contours of the body, the curve of the spine, and the shadows and highlights make the drawing below a study of sinuous flow.

Sheen, 2010, by Fred Hatt

The contrapposto principles can be seen even in an unusual seated pose seen from the side, as below.  A line drawn across the nipples and one drawn across the crests of the pelvis would create an angle pointing to the right.  The head turns away from the viewer while the far knee and hand come toward us, giving the pose that dynamic twist, while the near arm reaching out of frame to the left acts compositionally like an unresolved chord in music, keeping things a bit off balance.

Hoop Earring, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The spine is really the core of the body, and its movement is a key to the energetic expression of the pose.  Notice the difference in the next two drawings.  Here the spine seems to be lengthening, rising up.

Uplifting, 2011, by Fred Hatt

In the one below, by contrast, there’s a feeling of weight, of the spine relaxing downward.  Unlike most of the other drawings in this post, these two show facial expressions, which surely contribute to the contrasting moods, but even if you cover the faces you can see the difference in the energy.

Leaning on Wall, 2011, by Fred Hatt

In the two drawings above, the abstract treatment of the light around the figures suggests a kind of energetic aura.  In the drawing below a similar effect is achieved by using colored lines to indicate the complex ways that various light sources, both direct and reflected, flow over the curves of the body.

Mesh Masc, 2010, by Fred Hatt

All the parts of the torso are formed around a center line.  I try to locate this center line and then to develop the forms to either side, sketching with cross-contours, or strokes that follow the three-dimensional shapes of the body.

Terrestrial Body, 2010, by Fred Hatt

Here’s another contrapposto from behind, with the angles of the legs echoing the angles of hips and shoulders.

Helical Zigzag, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The energy of the pose below emerges powerfully from the stable center of the sacrum, the base of the spine.  The cross contours show the structure of muscles and bones of the back as a kind of swirling energy.

Sacral Center, 2010, by Fred Hatt

Here’s an unusual pose supported on one hip and forearm.  All four limbs are bent at more or less right angles, all pointing in different directions.

Lateral Bridge, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The features of the frontal torso are arranged similarly to the features of the face.  The face is the window of the soul, showing emotion, intelligence, engagement.  The torso is the face of the life force, showing energy and balance and movement.

Hand on Hip, Forearm on Doorknob, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The torso can embody vigor, sensuality, boldness, timidity, and so on.  The quality of spirit resides in the body as well as in the mind or brain.  Entering into a contemplative state requires releasing and balancing and stabilizing the energy of the body as well as the mind.

Grounded Sitting, 2011, by Fred Hatt

All the drawings in this post are about 50 x 65 cm, or 19 1/2″ x 25 1/2″, aquarelle crayon on paper.  All of these were drawn during 20-minute poses at Figureworks Gallery in Brooklyn.

(The title of this post is a line from the song “Lydia the Tattooed Lady”, by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, made famous by Groucho Marx in the 1939 film “At the Circus”.)

Ali, 2010, by Fred Hatt

The term “figure study” seems calculated to evoke pedagogical sobriety absent any whiff of lasciviousness.  Even the word “figure” suggests cogitation rather than concupiscence.  Representational artists have long found contemplation and analysis of the human body to be both an invaluable skill-building practice and a source of inspiration, but in the imagination of the general public all artists are roués and their models are not simply “undraped” but downright nekkid.

Those who are actually familiar with the practice drawing from life know that a room full of artists focused on the model is often suffused with a meditative intensity more like the atmosphere of a monastery than that of a brothel.  For fifteen years I have served as the monitor (supervisor) of a three-hour weekly class at New York’s Spring Studio.  We do a set of quick poses to get the energy flowing for both model and artists, and then a single long pose for the rest of the session.  Minus the breaks, we have about two solid hours to study and draw a single pose.

I’ve featured many drawings from those sessions in various posts on this blog.  Sometimes I work on the portrait, other times I concern myself with the subtleties of color and light or the complexities of foreshortening.  In this post I’ll feature drawings from the Spring Studio long pose sessions that come as close as I ever come to the ideals of traditional academic figure drawing practice.

Betty, 2009, by Fred Hatt

The academic approach to figure drawing generally demands that the entire figure be scaled to fit the page.  Artists may use a variety of measuring aids, such as a plumb line or a viewing grid, and use special techniques to establish accurate relationships, often spending more time in measuring and mapping than they do in actually drawing.  Some artists who work this way attend the long pose classes at spring studio.  They usually use graphite sharpened to a needle-fine point and work very carefully.  They’ve often been schooled in the techniques taught by Charles Bargue and Jean-Léon Gérôme, where students start their studies drawing from plaster casts of classical sculpture before graduating to the live figure.  Some of Bargue’s own drawings are particularly beautiful, and many other artists use these techniques to wonderful effect, although the danger always seems to be that the live model comes out in the drawings looking like a plaster cast.

Marilyn, 2009, by Fred Hatt

If you’re familiar with my work, you’ll know that this traditional academic method is quite far from my way of working.  For me it would be painfully slow and timid.  I do some measuring when I’m drawing, but more for checking and correcting rather than initial construction.  As a self-taught artist, I prefer to work as quickly,  spontaneously, and boldly as possible.  It’s certainly not the appropriate way for everyone to draw, but for me it’s how I get the feeling of aliveness into the work.

James, 2010, by Fred Hatt

So these aren’t really “academic figure studies” at all.  They are, however, drawings in which I have striven to depict, as accurately as I can, the reality of the model on the posing stand.  This includes the individual characteristics of the models and the way their bodies rest on or around the various boxes and bits of furniture and fabric that make up the completely artificial environment in which they are placed for our observation.

Emma & Maria, 2010, by Fred Hatt

Two models posing together lets us see the body in relation to another body, with all its differences and similarities.  The models for the drawing above were a mother and daughter.

Jeremiah, 2010, by Fred Hatt

It is rare in the open drawing long pose sessions that we get to study the back.  The back is just as complex as the front of the torso, but its defining points are much more subtle and therefore more challenging to draw.

Claudia, 2010, by Fred Hatt

The drawing above is of Claudia, the great model-blogger behind Museworthy.

Elizabeth, 2010, by Fred Hatt

For the drawing above, I was sitting on one side of the model’s platform in Spring Studio’s horseshoe-shaped arrangement.  I’ve included a very rough representation of the other artists on the opposite side of the room.

Jiri, 2010, by Fred Hatt

Standing poses are often considered the simplest and most basic poses for drawing, because they generally lack foreshortening and tricky juxtapositions.  I find them challenging, though, first because the tall and narrow standing body doesn’t fit well within the moderate rectangle of the drawing paper.  I find it hard to make myself draw so small, and I have a tendency to make the head too big because it’s hard to get the needed detail in such a small area.

Jennie, 2011, by Fred Hatt

Seated and reclining poses come more naturally to me, but every pose presents its own special challenges.

Maria, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The boxes and fabrics and objects around the model become part of the composition, but they also create a set of geometrical relationships that can help the artist to analyze the scene and establish proportions.

Yisroel, 2011, by Fred Hatt

For me, the reason to understand the anatomical structure of the body is not to be able to alter the figure to more closely resemble an ideal, but to better appreciate the range of variations on every part of the form that makes each figure unique.

Jun, 2011, by Fred Hatt

On most of the drawings featured in this post I’ve remained fairly faithful to the actual background objects on the model’s platform, though I’ve often simplified them and altered the colors to please my own sense of composition and color harmony.

Kuan, 2011, by Fred Hatt

I’ll close with another dual-model pose.  These men are not related as were the mother and daughter seen in the other two-model drawing here, but they had a great rapport.  Both of them look like they belong in the 19th century!  The younger model is the same James seen in the fourth image in this post.

James & Tram, 2011, by Fred Hatt

All of these drawings are 18″ x 24″ or close to that size, aquarelle crayon on paper.  All were drawn at Spring Studio’s Monday morning long pose sessions.

Dynamo, 2010, by Fred Hatt

My friend, model/muse and blogging mentor Claudia likes to post photos of herself to celebrate the anniversaries (first, second, third) of the launching of her great blog, Museworthy, and it has been my honor to be the chosen photographer each year so far.  This year we were seeking a new approach.  Claudia had the idea of getting in low and close with the camera, treating the body as a landscape.  She chose this sensual abstraction for this year’s anniversary post.

I love seeing the body this way.  Unusual angles create perspective effects and unfamiliar juxtapositions, and utterly transform the familiar forms of the body.  Foreshortening is a fundamental concept in drawing, designating the distortion of long shapes when seen end-on.  Often, in figure drawing, this refers only to an arm or leg that appears pointed toward the viewer of the image.  A familiar example would be the pointing finger and arm of Uncle Sam in James Montgomery Flagg’s iconic army recruiting poster of 1917.  Here I post examples of my figure drawings in which not only the extremities but the entire body is seen from a foreshortened perspective.

Looking at the body from an angle close to the central axis is very helpful in understanding it as a three dimensional form.  In these foreshortened torsos, we see the protuberances of the iliac spine of the pelvis rising to either side of the pubic bone.  The abdomen is a saddle-like shape, concave in one direction and convex in the other.  The ribcage is a converging arch.  The pectoral or breast muscles show a continuity with the deltoid muscles of the shoulder.  The upper of these drawings still shows analytical lines I drew to figure out the angular relationships of bodily landmarks.

Surveyed, 2004, by Fred Hatt

Thorax, 2009, by Fred Hatt

Looking at the body from the head end shows a succession of rounded or symmetrically swelling forms:  the top of the skull, then the cheekbones and nose, the jaw, the collarbone, the shoulders, the chest, the ribs, the abdomen and pelvis.  You can see it as a kind of architecture based on a series of differently shaped arches that you pass through or over, or as a landscape of hills and valleys that you can traverse on a meandering trail.  From this angle the legs and feet are often severely forshortened, and are best observed in relation to the cross-sectional contours of the torso.

Lounging, 2000, by Fred Hatt

Head End 2, 2006, by Fred Hatt

Head End, 2006, by Fred Hatt

I try to see organic physical forms as manifestations of patterns of energy.  In looking down the length of the body, you can see each of these levels as manifestations of the elemental forces associated with the chakras, a series of focal points arranged along the central column of the body in a Yogic conception of energy anatomy.  For example, the pelvis, corresponding to the water element, has the form of a basin, while the chest, corresponding with the air element, has the form of a bellows.  Here are a few sketches from a series exploring the energy patterns of the body in this context:

Strata, 2002, by Fred Hatt

Flat, 2002, by Fred Hatt

Zones 1, 2002, by Fred Hatt

To see the body in extreme foreshortening, I find it helpful to look at it not in terms of an understanding of structural relationships and proportions, but cross-sectionally, as a series of transverse contours receding in space.  The National Library of Medicine’s Visible Human Project, a three-dimensional atlas of human anatomy, has a website that offers animated “fly-throughs” of the human body in the various planes of sectioning.  Here’s the transverse section animation, the one most relevant to these end-on views of the human body.

Here are some more of my compositions of the body in extreme foreshortening:

Crossed Ankles, 2004, by Fred Hatt

Nuit, 1999, by Fred Hatt

The examples above are drawn from a distance of at least three meters and so show a sort of compressed perspective.  The feet and head are roughly in the same proportional scale but the angle of view has caused things to be seen in unfamiliar juxtaposition.  The drawing below is drawn from much closer, so it shows more perspectival diminution.  The feet and legs, closer to me, are large in comparison to the upper body and head, which are further away.  The length of the foot, measured on the drawing, is more than twice the width of the skull, but it looks right because it represents the perception of perspective.

Perspective, 2010, by Fred Hatt

In this foot-end view, the angles of the feet and legs are the foreground of the drawing, while the upper body becomes the mountain on the horizon.

Side Drawn Up, 2001, by Fred Hatt

Prone Reach, 2006, by Fred Hatt

Splay, 1999, by Fred Hatt

When the head is the foreground element, it remains abstract as we are looking at the top of the skull, and the face, if seen, is highly abstracted.  The body is even more landscape-like seen from the head end.

Climber, 2006, by Fred Hatt

In the drawing below, the blue line in the background is the “horizon”, or edge of the floor on which the model was lying.  The body formed a tilted rectangular form, so I tilted my drawing board to maximize usage of the page.

Tilted Horizon, 2001, by Fred Hatt

Sometimes these end-on views become visions of pure organic form.

Prone Twist, 2009, by Fred Hatt

The twisting of the body, as seen in the example above, also creates interesting sculptural forms seen from the foot end.

Corner, 2010, by Fred Hatt

Here the legs go one direction and the head the opposite, with the hand and arm reflecting that arc of movement.

Helix, 2001, by Fred Hatt

Here the position of the legs gives a soft curve to one side of the figure and a sharp angle to the other.

Bow and Arrow, 2000, by Fred Hatt

When the body is visually compressed by foreshortening, an upraised knee becomes dramatically long and vertical by contrast.

Wrist to Knee, 2008, by Fred Hatt

Angular Recline, 1998, by Fred Hatt

In the drawing below, the use of a mirror gives a view of the same pose from both the head end and the foot end.

Mira, 1996, by Fred Hatt

I’ll close this collection with a more finished piece, a foreshortened figure of graceful serenity.

Tranquility, 2008, by Fred Hatt

All the drawings in this post are aquarelle crayon on paper, in the size range of 18″ x 24″ to 20″ x 30″.  Other examples of foreshortened figures can be seen in this post and this one, and there are many others scattered through my portfolio site and other figure drawing posts on this blog.  This post features a famous 15th century foreshortened figure painting by Andrea Mantegna.

If you’re a student of drawing, you might be interested in a new series of articles on learning the basics of drawing that has begun appearing in the Opinion pages of the New York Times online edition, under the title “Line by Line” by James McMullan.

Body Helix (Beu), 2010, by Fred Hatt

Some artists denigrate the reclining pose as the choice of the lazy model getting paid to nap.  But reclining poses can embody tension or emotion rather than just relaxation, and the open-minded artist will revel in the chance to see parts of the body foreshortened and juxtaposed in unusual and even complex ways they would never see in a vertically composed pose.  This post is a collection of my recent reclining pose sketches, twenty-minute or ten-minute poses, mostly from the Saturday morning life drawing sessions at Figureworks Gallery in Brooklyn.

The above sketch is as far as possible from the familiar gently-curved sideways reclining nude painted by many artists from Giorgione to Modigliani.  Note particularly the twisted torso, showing both front and back of the body, the balanced angled supports of left arm and leg, and the lower leg folded up the wall.

The posing area at Figureworks is in an archway between two rooms, with artists drawing from both rooms.  Models are not posing in the round, but to two sides, with a sort of frame providing supports for leaning.  The model in the drawing below raised his left leg with his foot up on the wall of the arch:

Dreams (Saeed), 2010, by Fred Hatt

Here are some other uses of the wall as a leg support.  Here the body is held in a state of tension between the hands pressing against the floor and the foot pressing against the wall:

Angle Tension (Theresa), 2010, by Fred Hatt

This pose conveys an unusual bold power in the contrast between the closed upper limbs and the open lower limbs propped against the wall:

Arms Crossed Legs Open (Beu), 2010, by Fred Hatt

Another pose by the same model, also using the wall as a support for the legs:

Right Angle (Beu), 2010, by Fred Hatt

Reclining poses can provide interesting challenges in foreshortening.  I try to see the body as though it were a landscape, with the shapes as hills and mountains arranged at different distances.

Hands Clasped Behind (Jiri), 2010, by Fred Hatt

The face is a particular challenge when seen from an angle at which the features are not in standard frontal relationship.  Studying faces from these unusual perspectives can give you a much stronger sense of their three-dimensional structure.

Lying Back (Danielle), 2009, by Fred Hatt

Ribcage (Jiri), 2009, by Fred Hatt

I often approach the foreshortened forms of the body using cross-contours and studying light that strikes the body from opposite my viewing angle, as in these two studies of the model Corey’s unusually well-defined musculature:

Hammock Style (Corey), 2009, by Fred Hatt

Hugging the Blanket (Corey), 2009, by Fred Hatt

Similar techniques are used to convey the form of this beautiful female back:

Callipygia (Lilli), 2009, by Fred Hatt

Various twists and crossings can add interest to reclining poses:

Ankle Knee Cross (Jiri), 2007, by Fred Hatt

The quick sketch below is interesting because you can see my first approach to analyzing the figure, building it out of ovals, in beige, and then a second stage, going for more precision, in black and white, with significant corrections to proportion and relative positions:

L with Twist (Claudia), 2008, by Fred Hatt

That’s Claudia, the Museworthy blogger.  Here’s another of her great poses.  This is dynamism in a horizontal orientation:

Arm Overhead (Claudia), 2010, by Fred Hatt

Here are three wonderfully sinuous poses from the model Madelyn:

Complex Repose (Madelyn), 2010, by Fred Hatt

Tight Coil (Madelyn), 2010, by Fred Hatt

Supine Arched (Madelyn), 2010, by Fred Hatt

This model created an evocative pose simply by posing with a flashlight, giving a feeling of lying awake at night in a lonely tent:

Flashlight (Taylor), 2010, by Fred Hatt

Contrasting that waking stillness, the final pose in this post gives me the impression of active dreaming:

Dreaming Puppeteer (Theresa), 2010, by Fred Hatt

In previous posts I haven’t always credited all the models by name, but in this case it seemed appropriate, because these poses are all so creative and expressive.  You’ll notice some of the same names appearing several times.  These are magnificent models, and I would never have been able to make these images without them.

All drawings are aquarelle crayon on paper, sizes ranging from 18″ x 24″ to 20″ x 28″.  All are 10-minute or 20-minute sketches, mostly drawn at Figureworks Gallery.