Figure Drawing Ebooks

A Handbook of Anatomy for Art Students
This is a Dover reprint of the 1915 book by Arthur Thomson, a lecturer at the Royal College of Art, South Kensington. The book was an extensive survey of human anatomy using photographs of models and careful drawings of the muscles of the body in the same pose as the photographs. A feature of the book was the use of the photographs to show the body in various poses combined with anatomical drawings naming the muscles and showing the effect of expansion and contraction.

   



Anatomy for Artists: A New Approach to Discovering, Learning and Remembering the Body The author's biography from Amazon.com: Anthony Apesos is an artist and professor at the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University. He has exhibited throughout the eastern U.S. and in California and China, has done major commissions, and has been reviewed/published in the Boston Herald, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, New Art Examiner (regular reviewer), San Francisco Art Week, Art and Arts Exchange.

 Art Anatomy Simplified
Dover reprint of Charles Carlson's A Simplified Art Anatomy of the Human Figure. Carlson was an amazingly prolific author, 20 how to draw books over his career. Here is a biography.
 

Art Models 4: Life Nude Photos for the Visual Arts (Art Models series)
The art model's series, all of them.
Art Models: Life Nudes for Drawing Painting and Sculpting
Art Models 2: Life Nude Photos for the Visual Arts (Art Models series) (No. 2)
Art Models 3: Life Nude Photos for the Visual Arts (Art Models series) (No. 3)

Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist (Galaxy Books)
"Ingeniously edited, well-organized, and illustrated with almost a thousand excellent factual three-dimensional renderings."--Los Angeles Times

Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life
A classic, he wrote seven books about life drawing, they are combined in this volume.

Cast Drawing Using the Sight-Size Approach
Mr. Rousar currently teaches art and art history at Providence Academy in Plymouth, Minnesota.

Classical Painting Atelier: A Contemporary Guide to Traditional Studio Practice
Juliette Aristides, whose beautiful art is featured throughout this book, is the instructor of the Aristides Classical Atelier at the Gage Academy of Art in Seattle, Washington, where she lives. Her work is exhibited at the John Pence Gallery in San Francisco.

Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes: Volume 1: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures

Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes: Volume 2: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures

Walt was a kind of Mark Twain for us at Disney. He always taught with humor and skill. You learned to see the world through his eyes. I remember him one day encouraging us to leap into our drawings with boldness and confidence, "Don't be afraid to make a mistake. We all have 10,000 bad drawings in us so the sooner you get them out the better!" Sitting in Walt's class was as much a psychology course as it was a drawing class. One couldn't help walk away with your mind and soul a little more open than when you entered.

Glen Keane, Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Here is an interesting post about one of his classes. "during the production time of WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT I met WALT STANCHFIELD for the first time in london. it must have been 1987, don hahn had brought him over from los angeles to conduct drawing classes for the animators, better – ‘gesture drawing classes’." - Hans Bacher

Another one which demonstrates his ability to get to the essentials: "Forget the detail" and other animation-inspired lessons

Fifty Figure Drawings
Edited by George Bridgman this is a reprint of a book of fifty drawings collected by the famous teacher.

Henry Yan's Figure Drawing (Techniques and Tips)
Henry Yan still teaches at the Academy of Art University, San Francisco.

The Art Student's Guide To The Proportions Of The Human Form
More about the book here.

The Art Student's Guide to the Bones and Muscles of the Human Body: and Lessons on Foreshortening
More about the book here.

  

Adam und Eva, Frülingsreiter, Zwei Jünglingen am Wasser

  

Bogenschützen, Genesis, Zwei Nymphen in Bad

Das Kunstlerbuch, Band N, Hans Thoma, an 1899 book by Franz Hermann Meissner about Hans Thoma is on sale on Ebay. Click here to see the book on Ebay.

Hans Thoma grew up in the village of Bernau in the Black Forrest. In 1853 he went to Basel. He apprenticed first in lithography, then switched to painting. His first painting teacher was a painter of clock faces. He returned to Bernau to paint landscapes and portraits. He was admitted to the Karlruhe Art Academy in 1859. He left the academy at the end of 1866 and went to Düsseldorf. There he met Otto Scholderer and went with him to Paris for several weeks in May 1868. He was influenced by Courbet and returned to Germany to paint figures and landscapes. More biography at hans-thoma.com.


Hans Thoma; Leben und Werck.

Hans Thoma: Radierunger the Complete Etchings

Hans Thoma: Spiegelbilder (German Edition)





Der Philosoph mit dem Ei

Ken Nutt, who creates illustrations under the name Eric Beddows bought a copy of The Art Student's Guide to the Proportions of the Human Form. So I emailed him to ask him why, since he didn't seem to need any improvement in his drawings. He illustrated Ursula K. Le Guin's Changing Planes which is especially cool, because she has always been a favorite of mine. Here is a link to some of his illustrations for that book on her website: Changing Planes - Ursula K. Le Guin, Illustrations: Eric Beddows.

Turns out the tables of human proportions were useful to him in a new project. Here's what he had to say,

"I am currently writing and illustrating a fantasy trilogy that involves characters of all ages as well as horses and a number of other animals. I needed some absolute measurements for the children, adults and animals in my story so that I could coordinate the figures in the illustrations. Although I have a lot of standard anatomy texts, I wasn’t having much luck with measurements until I discovered your wonderful site."

He was kind enough to share some works in progress:






A link to his list of exhibitions:  Ken Nutt.



And some of the books:

Changing PlanesToes

Ken Nutt (The One Man Group Show)

The Zoom Trilogy: Zoom at Sea * Zoom Away * Zoom Upstream

Who Shrank My Grandmother's House?: Poems of Discovery

Changing Planes: Stories

Dictionary of Imaginary Places

Night Cars