Aug 13, 2012

Anatomy Basics: Just having fun drawing the back

A drawing of the back.
Charcoal drawing of a back
Every weekend I run a workshop for the students at the school I teach at. Usually, I don't draw during the workshop as I am going around assisting the students. This time, however, the model struck a pose that I found so interesting I that could not resist.  

Later after the workshop one of the students was asking me about where all the muscles of his back were in my drawing. I was doing the best I could to explain but not all the lines in my drawing were representing muscle boundaries and interpreting someone else's drawing can be tricky.

So, for him, I took the drawing home and did it again, showing where all the muscles are. If it can benefit one person it can benefit others, so I thought I'd share it with you. 

Take a look. 



A charcoal drawing of the back.
Here is the original drawing. It's just charcoal drawing on newsprint. I bring my newsprint in because I do demonstrations but other than that I don't plan on drawing so I don't bring my nice drawing paper. I am stuck with a drawing I like on paper I don't like. Alas.

A drawing of the back, highlighting the muscles
The good the about learning foundations drawing techniques is that if you can draw it once you can draw it again. When I decided to draw the muscles in I wanted to redraw it for a couple of reasons. 

One reason is to fix the mistakes I see in the original drawing. The other is after I show him the drawing I can work on it more and make a nice finished drawing on paper that I do like.

You will notice too that I changed things a bit. That's another wonderful thing about learning these techniques, I can change things around as I am not tied to my reference.

The muscles of the back.
Here is a muscle overlay to make clear my lines and a list of the muscles of the back. I did my best to match the color of the name of the muscle to the color of the muscle in the image. Enjoy.

Deltoids
Trapezius
Latissimus dorsi
Serratus anterior
External obliques
Abdominal
Infraspinatus 
Teres major
Teres minor