Constructive drawing of a skull of a human head:
Sheet composition

Table of contents

Sheet composition

To successfully cope with the training task, it is necessary to perform at least three drawings of the skull of a person’s head in different turns. Drawing in front, drawing in three quarters and in profile. Do not literally understand the words “drawing in front”, “drawing in profile” and so on! We must draw the skull as a complex shape in space, while reflecting in simple categories of volume.

Can you imagine a cube drawn in profile or in face? It is possible, but not in the form of a cube, but in the form of a square. To avoid such miscalculations in this task, look at the skull as if in a cube in a perspective. That is, it is necessary to see the thickness of the form, and for this it is necessary to shift a little relative to it in any direction.

When you have chosen the right position for the drawing, proceed to organize the space of the graphic sheet. In some editions of the drawing (with which you are already partially familiar) it is written that the size of the drawing of the skull or head of a person in a sheet should not exceed the actual size; that in front of the front part you need to leave a little more space than the occipital part of the head. This is not entirely true.

Choosing the A2 format for drawing the skull of a human head, you, first of all, pursue the goal of composition of the drawing and the sheet. And if in this format there will be one skull drawing proportionally related to the space of the sheet, you will be right, despite the large drawing. But on the other hand, why engage in gigantomania, when you can put two drawings close to the actual size in this format, or choose the A3 format for each picture?

In other words, if you are drawing an apple in A2 sheet format, find the proportional ratio of the image (the ratio of the size of the apple to the space of the selected sheet). The image of the apple will be large, but the composition of the leaf will be correct. Are you worried about the large image of the apple? Take A4 paper for fruit, and the problems will be solved.

As for the enlarged space of the sheet in front of the front of the skull (and, in fact, the elementary displacement of the mass of the picture in any direction), this, if you do not mean the intentional compositional technique, is unacceptable. The proportional mass of the skull pattern should be at rest on the sheet and not cause a desire to move it in the space of the sheet up, down or to the side; and even more so, the most unacceptable, cut the sheet. The foregoing refers to the entire head drawing section.

The drawing of the skull of a human head can be placed in the center of the sheet. But it is not a physical center, but an optical one. If we place the mass of the figure in the physical center, then it will seem to us that it is “heavy” and “falls” down. It would be better if you lift the entire mass of the picture upwards by one and a half centimeters. The correct square seems flattened to us, and we intentionally stretch it slightly upwards. Perhaps for this reason we do not always make promising reductions when we look at the subject a little from above.

So, we have outlined, or “scored,” the mass of the skull in the leaf. All this can be a kind of ellipse or sketch. If you feel that the drawing is proportional to the space of the sheet and is in a “state of rest”, then you can proceed to constructive construction of the skull. At the same time, applying in the figure the methods of constructive analysis, proportional relations, as well as the methods of linear and aerial perspective (Fig. 57).