Two Studies

A mural, done properly, requires lots of sketches and preliminary studies to determine structure and tonal values, as well as composition. These are but two studies for a mural by Ludwig Zaiser back around 1910. It's unlikely that the mural itself survived two world wars.

Wind-Swept

Can't you just hear the snap and crackle of fabric whipping in the wind? Such is the power of visualization.

Marianne H.W. Robilliard

 Draped Female Figure on a Wind-Swept Sea-Shore — circa 1906

The Male Form

See what I mean about JC Leyendecker and the male form?

 J.C. Leyendecker — figure study —early 20th century

J.C. Leyendecker — figure study —early 20th century

Really Ticked

See, there's this shepherd guy and he's been losing his cows (?) to a vagrant lion, and the guy is really ticked and he's really buff, and well, enough is enough.

P.A. Leroux — A Shepherd Strangling a Lion — 1883

I try to imagine how this artist worked out the pose. If it's from his imagination, well and good. But if this guy is posing for the artist, is he, like, grappling a pillow, or what? Gosh I hope I don't stay awake tonight worrying about this.

Struggle for Life

I'm guessing this is an allegorical image and it looks pretty disastrous for what could've just been a boatload of naked people, all minding their own business. That poor baby is being swept right out of the picture, and the blindfolded guy at the rudder seems pretty darn calm considering what a ruckus is going on around him ("What's going on, people? C'mon, somebody tell me. Why's the baby crying?"). Whoosh. All this makes a lot of our struggles seem pret-ty tame, I must say.

Henry Delacroix — Struggle for Life — 1893

Sensitive Line III

The sensitive pencil line of Gustav Klimt . . .

Gustav Klimt — Study for Water Serpents II — 1903-1904

Lovely Lalique

A lovely modern ad graphic for vintage art captured in glass.

 René Lalique – Bacchantes – 1927

Change of Pace

There are many of us who only knew John Berkey's dominant paintings of gargantuan multi-layered spaceships carving their way through space with cosmic flame. It's a lovely change of pace to see his quiet and elegant interior paintings.

John Berkey — Nude in Doorway — 1983

John Berkey — Nude in Low Light — 1983

Wonder Barr

George Barr is a wonder, his work traversing the universe. This royal study is prescient of Avatar, perhaps another race on Pandora.

© 1971 George Barr

Pogany Study

Willy Pogany — figure and drapery study

Keep Swingin'

Okay, I'm taking one more deeeep breath of fresh air before jumping back into the ring with this heavyweight deadline. There's the bell! The only way out of this is to keep swingin'.

George Petty

As I Was Saying

A magnificent study of a magnificent creature . . .

Charles LaSalle — figure study — 1940s

For All You Followers of the Female Form

To help warm up the post-holiday blues for all you followers of the female form, here is a Harper's promotional poster from a few years back, based on one of its covers, featuring the amazing loveliness of Gisele Bündchen.

Personally, I think the colorful typography adds to the graphic impact, making an iconic poster of the early 21st century.

Harper's Bazaar — Gisele Bündchen — 2002

Enigmatic

An interesting preliminary drawing by W. Russell Flint, in that it is similar to Flint's painting of Maruja, which was posted some time ago here, and yet has the strange title of 'Women Quarreling". Flint could be quite enigmatic.

Sir William Russell Flint — Women Quarreling — pencil

Leonardo Would Be Envious

The figure studies of Pierre-Paul Prud'hon are amazingly controlled and precise and yet, to my aesthetic, don't seem fussy. Prud'hon's studies are as rich as other's full-blown paintings. Leonardo himself would be envious.

Below, in detail, you can see the model's hair in lovely disarray, each stroke of chalk on the body lovingly and authoritatively placed, each eyelash delicately delineated.

The Lament

These women look really sad, so somebody came up with a good title to explain why 3 nudes are draped all around the landscape.

James Williams — The Lament — watercolor — early 20th century

The Secret Heart

Neysa McMein was one of the great graphic artists of the early to mid 20th century. Her specialty was portraits of pretty girls for the covers of McCall's, Ladies' Home Journal, Saturday Evening Post and Collier's, among others, and for glamorous advertising assignments.

Her social life in the 20s, 30s and 40s was fabulous—you know—with friends like Robert Benchley, Charlie Chaplin, Noel Coward, Dorothy Parker, Bernard Baruch, Bea Lillie, etc etc. In later life, she was a portrait artist, with great people sitting for her.

Noel Coward wrote of her: "Neysa was one of the rare people in the world whose genius for friendship could pierce through all facades, surmount all defenses, and find its way immediately and unerringly to the secret heart."

She also created wonderful nude studies, not pin-ups, but beautiful women with great presence and grace.

Neysa McMein — Nude Study

Neysa McMein — Nude Study

More of her work some other day.

Half Youthful and Half Animal

Imagine it's the age of flower children and free love—in France, in 1967. Imagine a thoughtful man of 69, an age when many folk are starting to turn out the lights upstairs, strolling through the small town where he was born and coming across a young woman dozing, semi-nude, on the bank of a river. She is at peace with herself and the world.

What does this man do? Pull out a camera, with it's one-eyed 1/30th of a second stare? No, he pulls out his brushes and watercolors and creates a spontaneous study of her innocent bliss.

André Planson — Sleeping Girl on the Banks of the Marne — 1967

Such was André Planson, the French artist, born in 1898 in La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, a small town on the Marne River. To quote from an online source:

". . . the profound ties to his native land was what really counted in Planson's life. He always returned to the small town of Ferté and its surroundings where he painted deftly and untiringly the corn fields and the windings of the Marne River with the fishermen, the boatsmen, the restaurants full of shapely pretty girls whose sinuous figures, half youthful and half animal, are in accord with the curves of the foliage and the reflections of the light".

Oh, as I grow older to be such an age, I pray that I be in such a place, such a situation, such a state of mind and ability.

Reference

Some people were rather surprised to find that Alex (Flash Gordon) Raymond used nude models as reference for his fully clothed drawing poses. In reality, it is a time honored practice for artists to get the anatomy correct:

Sambourne — program cover design — 1900

Sambourne — reference photo — 1900

For All It's Worth

Got a word from Daniel that the artistically worshipped book Figure Drawing for All its Worth is back in print and available—and he gives us a link to information here.

The book has been available on the 'net as a digital doc, but that can't top having the real deal as part of your reference library.

And HERE is a scan from my copy of the original volume that was and is a cornerstone, not only in the education and edification of myriads of illustrators, but also in the wholesome and healthy appreciation of the undraped female form.

Andrew Loomis — Reclining Figure