On the observation of nature we shall build a system for the general amelioration of mankind.

–Francis Bacon

Today: 30 minutes figure drawing, class style (10 figures x 30 seconds, 5 x 1 minute, 2 x 5 minute and 1 x 10 minute). Timed figure drawing is always a sobering affair: skill is laid bare when you cannot erase and re-erase or draw it again but better. So what has been unearthed?

1. Poor construction. How do you draw the human body? There are many different techniques, as long as you are able to quickly convey the pose (the 'gesture') of the subject, as well provide additional information such as: where is the waist? How large are the arms? What are the shapes of the legs? One method I've seen is that you begin with long lines, either 'c' or 's' shaped, to indicate the gesture–perhaps a head, too. Then you use lines to indicate volume and direction of masses on the body (receding or approaching from your viewpoint?), and then spheres and rectangles to create the body parts themselves. The lines guide the geometry, and the geometry creates a kind of mannequin to lay the folds and bumps of skin, muscle, bone and cloth upon.

Ultimately construction is an art. One couched in knowledge and know-how, such as major muscles, the tendency for legs to form a reverse 's' or how the spinal column interacts with the ribcage vs. the pelvis, but nevertheless an art. Getting a sense of 'flow' and naturally understand how the body looks is key.

2. Problems with the head, neck and shoulder area. It is important to look at the neck muscles and how they connect to the torso (two main chords run to the clavicle) as well as the shoulder muscles flowing from the neck and back. Most prominently, there are issues below with shoulder width, height of the shoulders and with the arms flowing out of the shoulder. Irregularity can make the arms look bad, or the head or torso mis-sized.

3. Imperfect proportion among body parts, between the head, torso and legs in particular. This is a matter of practice and developing a sense of the body proportion, as far as I know. For example, the 10 minute pose is too tall in the legs and the head is misshapen.

4. Economy of line. In figure drawing, there is a general sense that every line is supposed to count: don't use two lines to figure out the same thing! You are supposed to commit. It's a more exacting approach, but one would assume improvement comes alongside it. For me this is also a result of the poor construction on display. If each idea was laid out clearly there would be less need for additional lines!

Drawing has never lacked in observation–yet somehow the observing must be awry, look at the state of science, similarly couched in observation: drawing has not made the same progress forward that science has. What I believe drawing needs to match is a greater quality of observation: in drawing we have generations drawing largely similarly, with improvements relatively lateral. How much better are we then the Renaissance artists? Scientists and engineers, however, could point to quantum physics, the moon landing, computers and so forth and indicators of progress...I suppose artists might point to animation and digital things. Nevertheless, art lags behind science and it is no secret. To paraphrase the saying from the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, 'everything that can be invented has been...' and yet still more comes from science. Surely there is still mich within the drawing, that graphite domain. With clarion vision and a shining mind, one day a new apotheosis will arrive beyond the shadow of doubt.

Just as astronomy belied Sputnik...