How to sketch & draw people Part 3 - What is Blocking In How to block-in

now in this tutorial I'm going to share
something with you guys that I think is
very useful and it's in line with what
we've been doing as far as drawing
people before I did the tutorials on
using the mannequin gesture drawing and
as we develop I'm gradually going to
developing towards a full figure I
figured in this one I would show you
guys how to use the method known as
blocking in and this pretty much means
you try to sketch the figure into an
enveloping or encompassing or shape that
contains everything and then you nap you
gradually break that larger shape up
into more a more specific shape until it
delineates the figure meaning you're
pretty much going to be using flat
shapes and you're going to be starting
from a general shape and get it gets
more and more specific as it gets
towards looking like the figure now it's
really useful and it's also useful when
you're drawing anything to be honest but
it's useful as well especially when
you're drawing the figure and it's also
useful when you're using it for
compositions especially if you're doing
like a thumbnail sketch of a composition
you can just draw an overall shape that
contains the figure and place it
wherever you want and this is something
that relates to even even in Renaissance
art for example you see many examples of
how artists would use these shapes to
contain the entire figure so for example
they would say for example have a
triangle like that right they'd have a
triangular shape and then within this
triangle they would contain or place the
figure so you could actually compose an
entire composition you could design or
arrange an entire composition and just
putting you basic shapes and the figures
would fit within that now this is really
useful whenever you're sketching and the
main thing is is that it helps you to
think holistically you're thinking of
the entire figure you're not just
thinking of okay I'm drawing a head or
I'm drawing you know the arm or just a
leg or so on and so forth you think of
the entire figure and it helps you to
simplify what you see and look for big
relationships and not just you know the
little
the little minor relationships between
part in part but you're actually looking
at the whole and you develop the entire
figure in that sense you say for example
you're drawing a figure that's seated
right so good way you could do that is
you know you have this triangle here
which kind of gets a sense of the the
width and the height how wide is your
drawing - how tall whatever the you know
how in whatever pose it is and I'll go
through series of poses to show you an
example of what I mean so say for
example I'm starting with something like
this so that's like you know I say the
figure is contained within this
triangular shape then what I'm gonna do
as I go through it is I'm going to start
breaking up this larger shape into
smaller shape so say for example I may
see that shape right and here's another
ship I notice that I can still break out
of this triangle see it doesn't
necessarily mean everything is contained
within it it just means that that is the
dominant shape that I feel so see I have
a little shape here and I'm just gonna
use this as an example of showing you
how you can break up a larger figure
into smaller figures see I'm gonna break
up this box I have here into even a
smaller box see and this is pretty close
to you know what you'd be doing with
your your gesture drawings as well
because you're not focusing so much on
the specific things as yet you're just
kind of narrowing out the proportions of
the figure as you see it
you
and so so basically you know the main
idea is that you keep going from a
general shape to a more specific shape
and I guess to some people they may say
well it's like a waste of time why not
just draw the original shape before you
draw that shape and the point is is that
it helps you first of all this shape is
much easier to draw than this shape okay
and not only that the thing is drawing
this shapes helps you to get a sense of
the proportion of this shape see and
that's the main thing it's easier to
sense or to to judge the proportion of a
simple shape as opposed to a larger
shape so for example if I'm going to
draw a curve like this it's much easier
to draw these two straight lines or
these three straight lines and then I
can just round them up afterwards you
see what I'm saying so the point is
you're going from general to specific
you're going from simple to complex and
that's you're going from big to small
and that's the idea it's let's do
another pose
you
and the cool thing about this is that
notice I'm not even thinking about
volume I'm not thinking about mass so
much I'm just thinking about in terms of
seeing this as a flat shape I'm just
going from large shape to more specific
and I can keep keep developing these
natural forms more and more see it
starts as a V like that and then you may
start getting a little bit more organic
and natural keep breaking up the figure
more and more just like that even when
the the figures actually spaced out the
same thing applies I'll show you again
another example you could have a large
shape like this
she's really good to do this because
you're getting a sense of what is the
overall space that contains this figure
you
and if this is just another method you
know that you can use or even combine
with what you already know you know it's
really useful no matter what you're
drawing carving out and thinking of you
know overall shapes of things one of the
drawings that I really like is a drawing
by uh by Rubens
you
you see and that's that's how you you
just keep developing it but the idea is
you start from a general figure and then
you just keep you know carving it out
smaller and smaller and smaller and
smaller and that's the idea you keep
going from a large shape to a small
shape so the first thing you should do
is first thing you should do is get a
sense of what is the overall dimensions
like how wide is the shape from how tall
or high the shape is that contains the
figure and then you think of what is a
simple shape and I would say something
like you know three or four or five you
know sides to the shape you know
something really simple not too
complicated what is the main containing
shape that you know that really contains
this thing and then you can even break
it up if you want for example you could
do something like this start breaking it
up like that
you
see and that's how you keep doing it you
know you carve the figure out of these
large shapes and eventually it will just
reveal itself
you
C&S basically idea so once you can first
think of what is the the major
containing shape that this entire figure
fits in and then once you can think of
the entire shape that the figure fixing
then it's just a matter of breaking up
that largest shape to you know kind of
find or define the interior shapes that
I went in there and when you're drawing
the large shape notice that I could even
contain the negative shape the negative
space as well see I contain the negative
space within that larger shape I contain
the negative shape space within the
larger shape here see I do the same
thing here it's included its included
here as well alright so that's very
important that you do that you have to
contain everything within that and this
goes for drawing just about anything you
know especially with the figure it's
really useful but it applies to drawing
just about anything you can imagine