✑ ANDREW LOOMIS on FUN WITH A PENCIL, PART ONE, S3

FUN WITH A PENCIL  ◇ PART ONE, S3

Today on the JUFSEN BOOK CLUB, we'll discuss Part One, Section 3, BLOOK ACCURACY, of the old but gold 

Fun With A Pencil : How Everybody Can Easily Learn to Draw, released 1939 by the American illustrator Andrew Loomis. 

This is a summation in own words. All credit goes to author and creator of the book, Andrew Loomis. 

For simplicity's sake, Part One, HOW TO DRAW FUNNY FACES has been divided into three Sections. 

Section 1 ✿ BLOOK BASICS  p. 13 to p. 24

Section 2 ✿ BLOOK EXPRESSIONS p. 25 to p. 35

꧁ Section 3 ✿ BLOOK ACCURACY p. 26 to p. 49 ꧂

Oh boy! Now the fun really starts!

So far you've been learning the Blook Method of building heads. It goes as follows ... 

Draw lightly a circle, perfectly round or lopsided. Make then some curving lines to indicate form and direction, making it a sphere in space. From that sphere, you build onto it other basic "forms" (note the word "forms", not flat 2d shapes"), such as cones, blocks and cylinders. 

Continue to draw the construction phase of your drawing lightly. Go progressively smaller, starting from the big forms to then the small forms. And once you feel done, lay in your hard and thick lines, indicating the contours of your face. BOOM you've made a Blook head!

The Blook Method gets its fun in being free from proportion, where you can take the liberty to stretch, pinch, make big, make small all the basic forms you've put together as a face. 

Something equally or even more rewarding once you get it, is taking the next big step to the Divided Ball and Plane Method, which you can think of just the Blook Method in a disguise. This time you make the heads, more or less, resembling accurately the proportions of human head. 

Let's jump in and see how it's done!

This is the real deal of the book. All of the previous pages, has prepared you for the exciting Divided Ball and Plane Method. It's the Blook Method, but here it's just a little more complex when it comes to proportion and measuring. You'll make it!

The cranium of the head, if you take an estimated guess at it, is simply put, a ball with the sides chopped off. 

If you want to draw the head as it is actually seen, you've got to fit to those alterations we make to the sphere,  some small some exaggerated.

But similarly as the Blook Method goes, you start off with the simple form of a sphere, then adjust bit for bit as we go along, eventually arriving to the face we want. 

As you all know by now, is the fact, that we're all different. That goes for heads too! Some heads are more wider, more narrow, more smaller, more bigger, and the planes of the head entirely different than the other fellow. The Divided Ball and Plane Method makes the seemingly impossible task of making diverse heads simple, the working principle never goes down. 

So if you have the enthusiasm and wish to create realistic and more precise looking heads, it's encouraged you take a good and hard look and study at the measurements Loomis gives to us.  

These are the IDEAL proportions Loomis proposes. As you can see, the face is divided into three equally measured parts. Going from top to bottom, the first part starts at the base of the hair line, down to the eyebrows. The second equal part, from the eyebrows to the bottom of the nose, and the third equal part from the bottom of the nose to the base of the chin. It's the perfect three's.

A fun little exercise to train your eye for checking, is finding a photo or drawing and marking the perfect threes and other measurements.

But as said and as you'll eventually notice is the fact that every face is different, and these measurements need not to be that strictly adhered to, especially in imaginative head building, where you have the privilege to decide the level of exaggeration you want. The Divided Ball and Plane Method only serves as a helping hand, which it certainly is, when making proportionally accurate heads. Instead of guessing your way forward to making the head, you now have a plan to go about it, a construction plan. 

If you have the desire to render even more accurate and naturalistic heads, consider COMBINING the Divided Ball and Plane Method with the Asaro Head Method, which gives the face EVEN MORE structure.

Making the Head with a Ball and Plane

Draw a ball, or more accurately called, a sphere, as you have done before with Blook method. This time however, cut off the sides, then measure out three equal parts, saving an eyeball measure or so for the top and bottom of the head. The three parts you measure out, make up the face, one for the forehead, one where your eyes, nose and ears will be placed, and the last for the mouth and chin. 

For a more in depth guide ... CLICK HERE

(A thing to consider is that when making the Pretty Girl or Boy, you need to more accurately place the features of the face, nicely in their "correct" place of the ball. This makes it a keen exercise for training your proportions and measurements of the Divided Ball and Plane Method. )

So that was Divided Ball and Plane Method, that's BLOOK ACCURACY for you! Make sure you leave your thoughts on this down below in the comments. Share something valuable you noticed!

As always thank you for reading!

See you around!