Squash and Stretch Bean
Project Description:
Do a series of squash and stretch bean drawings looking for a way to quickly draw the figure.
Focus on James Suhr's method of ball in bean
Do Circle Kata and find the right kind of brushes to ensure you have variation in your line weight.
Combine Circle and Bean drawings from photo or figure reference
Watch the Stan Prokopenko Video and do more like that
See the sidebar and follow instructions for each page.
Video Introduction to this group of assignments with drawing demos with Claudia Pimentel
Exercise - simplifying the figure
James Suhr - Disney Television Animation- KCAD Grad
Circle Kata Exercise:
For this exercise, start by doing some circle warm ups on your page set to 1920 x 1080 or 3000 by 3000 pixels.
Look for a good flow from your brush - thick to thin and light to dark. Have them be all in one motion. Do lots.
Brush Tip - Use the brackets to resize your brush
make your brush smaller [
make your brush BIGGER ]
Then do the 2 circles that represent the spheres of the ribs and the pelvis and add the bean. Using a non scratchy approach to drawing with thick to thin strokes. Do a lot of these until you are confident with your bean. Then do only the bean not drawing the circles unless you need to to understand the form.
Use the drawing resource Line of Action Drawing with nude female models, set to 30 seconds. Get drawing.
Draw the Spheres with the Bean - start not stretched then stretch - not looking at reference. - Susan Bonner
Bean Gestures by Susan Bonner -looking at Reference on Pixel Lovely Figure Drawing of nude female models - 30 seconds each
Susan Bonner - Later adding a little more anatomical features and structure on that top left one.
Susan Bonner - Find the Spine, Iliac Crest, Shoulder blades, Sternum and other spots as a reference point in the bean drawing
Student examples:
Joseph Mead - Line of Action then Bean - look for the C and the Slanted I. This is where we will get our action from.
Jordan Vohel - Line of Action then Bean - Draw the line of action in pink and the bean in blue.
Rachel Brewer- Beans
Piper Fields - Beans with a little more figure influence.
Corbin Swets- Bean - then add the arms and legs and heads
Video Tutorial
FINE ART AND THE BEAN
Pontermo Compares two torsos that have a lot of squash and stretch to the "bean".
PONTORMO, Jacopo - Mannerism
(b. 1494, Pontormo, d. 1557, Firenze)
KCAD Digital Character Drawing curriculum and site designed by Susan Bonner.