One of my watercolor teachers showed me this wonderful way to construct figures, a technique developed by watercolor artist Tony van Hasselt (www.tonyvanhasselt.com/). We want to leave figures out of paintings because we are afraid that we won't get the anatomy right or there is too much detail. Well, the solution is to leave out the detail and be aware of a simple lesson in proportion. To leave out the detail, use only the three letters, U-W-O.
1. Start with the U. Paint an upside down U and fill it in. This becomes the torso.
2. Use the O for the head, but make sure that it slightly overlaps the upside down U so that it doesn't look like it is floating.
3. Then add a long, elongated W for the legs. Make sure that the legs are long enough. The midpoint of our body is about where the legs attach to the hips.
Try with this simple technique to make the figure more interesting by changing the position of the torso, adding arms, shadows, feet, bending the legs, etc. A good drawing exercise is to take a sketchbook and pencil and sit down in a public place. Draw the figures that are walking past you, waiting for a bus, riding a bicycle, etc. Learning to quickly respond to these gestural figures will give you plenty of figure sketches that can then be incorporated into your paintings. Have fun!
