*Help* with George Bridgman Books

[ulteriorcriateor]

Hi,

Yes I've searched the forums for the answer. And If this is the wrong place to ask....mods could you move it?

But i have the george bridgman books and everyone has been telling me different ways of using them. Some say just copy the book over and over again and youll understand it....others say copy it over and over again and apply it to what you want to do...

What is the exact way to use the books?

Thanks in advance

[Psychotime]

What? Is this a serious question?

Doesn't the latter make the most sense to you?

Plus, those two are essentially the same exact thing!

[hemP]

1.Copy
2.Study
3.Apply

[Zazerzs]

i hear what your saying.

Copying with out knowing why you are coping it or what you should be paying attention to, might be leaving some in the dark.

One of the cool things about Bridgman is his use of solid shapes and how easy they are to find. Placing tracing paper over his figures and finding the cubes and solid shapes he uses it a good way to start to see what hes doing.

Once you see the squares and volumes hes using for the body parts and how he rotates them its easier to set the book up and draw from it like you would a life drawing model.

Also with tracing paper over his figures follow his lines,

First find his directional line and see how he repeats it.
Then on another piece of tracing paper follow his curves and arabesques
also follow his vertical and horizontal lines. then once you can find them, use those same techniques in your studies.

Also while your doing , that learn how he sets his anatomy with in those solid shapes, and all the anatomical construction goodness he lays out.

It can take a while to see what hes doing, but once you do its extremely helpful in twisting and posing figures in your mind.

GL

[JParrilla]

dont EVER JUST copy something from any book. You have to copy with understanding no matter what book it is. When your copying.. ask why. Why does this shape look this way? why does this line make the figure twist? Where are the cubes and cylinders? etc. When you do this is when you really get something out of copying. Just copying like a robot will do nothing for you. You have to be looking to learn and understand... to actually learn and understand. Good luck buddy

[purb36]

some good advice i've gotten with bridgman is to:
1) first, skim through the whole book
2) READ the whole book intently, using the drawings as reference to understand what the reading is all about and copying the drawings
3) re-read sections of the book, working intently on one body part (or system of parts) at a time, and drawing a ton of them from imagination to really solidify the information in your brain.

i liken it to studying a math textbook at school. you don't just copy the example problems and suddenly you know how to solve every problem. first you read the chapter, then look at the example problems, THEN do a bunch of problems yourself so that you get practice seeing different problems and figure out for yourself how to apply the tools you learned through the chapter to all sorts of problems.

if you want to see examples of this, check out the earlier pages in my sketchbook. bridgman helped me sooooooo much; i HIGHLY recommend his books to anyone studying anatomy.

i hope this helps; good luck!

[dcorc]

The words are not just there to fill up the spaces between the drawings

[le_dominator]

Pay attention to first breaking the figure into boxes as an abstract unit of construction.

The box as a unit of construction is the most general lay in and abides by all the laws of motion, perspective, and lighting that you can throw at them. By simplifying the form and progressively building up on it (as you see him do throughout the pages), he shows you the behavior he's trying to describe (for instance wedging).

Read first, and because these are conceptual tools, analyze the drawings based on what you read.

Read again one more time now that you've seen the concepts in play, and begin to copy with the major concepts ACTIVELY in your mind. It's even better to write out a re-cap of those concepts on the paper so you can analyze and make notes as you do each drawing.

I hope this helps.

[CRYPT]

very useful thread thanks

[riccohaddad]

This is all awesome advice. Thanks all

[[email protected]]

Bridgman is not very good when it comes to sheer anatomy, so I suggest you get your hands on a decent anatomical reference, like Peck's Atlas. Whenever Bridgman leaves you in the dark, look it up!

[sone_one]

hes providing a great framework though, where you can (as you mentioned) fill the gaps with other anatomical resources if necessary. what he has put forth is much more important than all those details though, if it comes to picture making, especially the topics of rhythm, action and balance.
so it works better to study bridgman and look at other more detailed resources if necessary for the given goal, than studying anatomical details in depth and consulting bridgman every once in a while, because these are meta concepts that apply to everything.

[dpaint]

Remember Bridgman taught life drawing. The books are to be used in tandem with life studies; if you aren't in life classes you can't compare the abstraction of the forms with reality.

[eclip-se]

Whoa, interesting thoughts, i own the books and they'r powerfull for sure, but i disapointed myself that, always when i open, read, and try to draw what's inside i found myself confused with not understanding them, the style which it is drawn confuse me.. if i try to copy exacly what's inside without thinking, it gives me nothing.. it's copying without analyzing and if i try to analyze, shaded areas confuse me, i have no clue how to correctly think when working with these books.. for now, more observational and less bridgman in my opinion. :>

[[email protected]]

Whoa, interesting thoughts, i own the books and they'r powerfull for sure, but i disapointed myself that, always when i open, read, and try to draw what's inside i found myself confused with not understanding them, the style which it is drawn confuse me.. if i try to copy exacly what's inside without thinking, it gives me nothing.. it's copying without analyzing and if i try to analyze, shaded areas confuse me, i have no clue how to correctly think when working with these books.. for now, more observational and less bridgman in my opinion. :>

Bridgman is old; in fact, he is dead. If Bridgman doesn't work for you, then try a modern presentation of the same, like Michael Hampton's 'Figure Drawing - design and invention'

[Shahan]

Remember Bridgman taught life drawing. The books are to be used in tandem with life studies; if you aren't in life classes you can't compare the abstraction of the forms with reality.

His book, the amalgamation, the complete guide .. is litterally called: Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing From Life

-


Which I always forget even though I see the book cover every time before I open it.

Anyway, always apply... I think. Don't ever not apply. Also the internet is your oyster for all the drawing information/tutorial videos you need. never tie yourself down to just, the B.Man.

[email protected] is right... here are some Open Source, Public Domain drawing books. http://drawingbooks.org/

More importantly Decide for yourself
Look at the Bridgman approach to drawing the head... Now look at the Loomis approach...
Most people find loomis' approach easier to understand and more applicable at first. Even though you'll always work on construction.
I don't know exactly what kind of drawing you're into though so sorry if this doesn't apply.

and for why not...
Abdon J Romero's Youtube Channel has this lovely video, using a Loomis approach.
i love this video and the following parts.

remember, look around and decide what works best for you. and always apply, maybe just only copy in the beginning, but jeez... have fun. apply
art is fun, if you're not having fun, you're doing something wrong.

[[email protected]]

Here are all the Andrew Loomis books for FREE on PDF:

Now that the Loomis books are/will be back available in print, I don't think it is a good idea to promote illegal downloads of copyrighted material.