I am working my way through my figure drawing book - c1950. May how prescriptive it is - take for example drawing the neck and shoulder lines. Here we are shown 11 different angles/types and the anatomy of the women is discussed in some detail for each. Not once is the reader told to look and look and keep looking. Instead it is all about the angle of clavicles and there relationship to sterno mastoids or something like this. Now this is actually very useful advice and I must admit to have actually learnt a great deal from this. However, and this is a big empire state building type of however, it really sucks the joy out of drawing. An art drawing of a woman should also try and capture her humanity and femininity far more than the how the skin lies over the deltoid muscles. As an exercise in drawing technique this is very useful. As an exercise in capturing the essence of a person it is next to useless. However, call me old fashioned, but I believe you do need to understand much of what this book is talking about. You can then junk it if you wish but at least you will have the information in the first place. Oh how things have changed in the last 50 years.
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