White on Black Torso Study
17d
Dan Blodgett
Someone recently asked me about my process for creating the white drawings on black paper that are in my Watts/Bridgman album, and it inspired me to create another one! So, naturally, this is a study from the Watts on Bridgman course/book, and I must say, I love doing these so much. And this one came out great... I must have eaten my Wheaties before starting this! It feels so much more like painting than drawing, probably because you have to consider the shape design so deeply before laying in tone. Or... what's the opposite of tone? Light? Laying in light? Can one do that? Hmm... And Yoni is just the perfect model to study anatomy from. Guy is so shredded it's wild.
This drawing mostly highlights the way the pectorals and front deltoid stretch and interact with each other during scapular retraction and humerus extension (there's also a bit of lateral rotation), but also shows well the flaring of the ribcage and elasticity of the abdominals when the chest is thrust forward. Also, you can easily note to which ribs the serratus originates, being exposed from under the latissimus by the same retraction motion of the shoulder blade.
For anyone who finds this style of drawing inspiring and/or is interested in learning how to do it, I highly recommend picking up the "Watts on Bridgman" course or ebook(s) or both. And of course, get the Complete Bridgman book while you're at it, because that's really where you're going to be learning the names of the muscles and whatnot. Jeff doesn't really go into the technical side of the anatomy. He just shows you how to draw it! Which is great, but we like to sound like we know what we're doing, don't we?