Drawing the Human Figure: Mastering Anatomy with Joseph Sheppard
In this outstanding guide, master artist Joseph Sheppard provides a detailed approach to mastering figure drawing through a clear understanding of anatomy. With concise, expert instruction and more than 250 halftone illustrations and 180 line drawings, Sheppard carefully leads artists step-by-step through the techniques needed to convincingly render the human form.
The book opens with an essential chapter on mastering human proportions, laying a strong foundation for successful figure drawing. Following chapters focus on individual parts of the body—the arm, hand, leg, foot, torso, head, and neck—with special attention to facial features and expressions, culminating in guidance for drawing the complete figure.
Each section combines multiple views of the featured body part, detailed discussions of underlying bones and muscles, tables of muscle origins and insertions, and explanations of surface anatomy. Throughout, Sheppard’s expert insights offer artists the tools to create lifelike, anatomically accurate drawings with confidence.
Editorial Review
In this superb guidebook, a skilled practitioner of figure drawing demonstrates how to achieve mastery of anatomy through careful, knowledgeable articulation of the muscles and bones lying beneath the skin. Joseph Sheppard’s concise instructions have been carefully integrated with over 250 halftone illustrations and over 180 line drawings to lead artists one step at a time through the techniques required in rendering human anatomy convincingly.
The opening chapter of the book presents the special techniques involved in mastering human proportion.The chapters that follow each deal with a separate part of the body: the arm, hand, leg, foot, torso, head, and neck (with special coverage of facial features and expressions) and the complete figure.
Each of these chapters follows a basic format that combines drawings of the featured body portion from many different angles, coverage of the specific bones and muscles involved, a table of muscle origins and insertions, and coverage of surface anatomy and depictions of the body part in a variety of positions.
Joseph Sheppard taught drawing, anatomy, and painting for many years at the Maryland Institute of Art. He is the author of several books of art instruction, and the recipient of a number of distinguished prizes and awards for his sculptures and other works of art, many of which are in the collections of art museums across America.
About the Author
Joseph Sheppard taught drawing, anatomy, and painting for many years at the Maryland Institute of Art. He is the author of several books of art instruction, and the recipient of a number of distinguished prizes and awards for his sculptures and other works of art, many of which are in the collections of art museums across America.
