Skeleton Drawing Week 3 (for Dec. 19)

Okay, rush time!  I hate that it comes down to the grind and I feel rushed to get things on the page.  On Monday I worked through the entire rib cage and the rest of the spinal column.  It went okay after Amy helped me with the spinal column.  After a while I decided that the bones did not have to look absolutely perfect, as long as I knew what was happening to them and how they generally move and are structured it is okay that they are not perfect likenesses to the bones on the actual skeleton.  Duh.  Why did it take me that long to figure that out?!  I'm a perfectionist, I'm not happy unless it looks exactly like the skeleton I'm looking at.

At this point it is unrealistic to draw this way.  I'm focusing more now on structure and understanding of how these bones fit together, which is actually more rewarding as I'm finding out that I may have to improvise and move one of the legs just to fit the whole skeleton as one piece on the paper.  I thought about chopping off the foot and drawing it separately, but in the end I knew I would not like that it was not a whole structure, so I'm planning on creating my own pose for the lower half.

On Wednesday I completed the torso, including hip bones and tail bone as well as the rest of the arm and hands.  I had to redraw the left hand a couple times, making it arch enough to look believable and like it was actually resting on something.  It was also difficult for me to go back to working light on that arm and hand to make it look like it was back in space, because - unlike my usual technique - for this drawing I'm finding I am having to push myself darker and darker in the front objects to make them appear like they come at the viewer in space.  This is very difficult for me - to not be tempted to go back and smudge in the dark spots to have them blend better because if I did, I would pick up too much material and the darkness would disappear.

I am very proud of the tail bone and right hand here.  I took a long time actually finding the plane changes on the tail bone and actually had to find a separate right hand and look at it close up for this drawing and I think it turned out better because I did that.