The Mannikin Frame – Part One

Mannikin Frame - 1
Copied from Figure Drawing for All It's Worth
Graphite Pencil on Paper

In Figure Drawing For All It’s Worth, Andrew Loomis uses the idealised human proportions (see Proportions of the Figure) as the basis for a quickly drawn stick figure.

Over four pages of illustrations, he introduces one of the most interesting concepts in the book.

Loomis presents the mannikin frame as a tool for drawing figures in preliminary sketches, an important step in learning anatomy and an approach for drawing figures from life.

It also seems to provide a method for developing a hurriedly scribbled gesture drawing into a more complete drawing.

Mannikin Frame - 2
Copied from Figure Drawing for All It's Worth
Graphite Pencil on Paper

The drawings on this post are copied from the Loomis’ first page of mannikin drawings. For the first two sets of drawings I drew a vertical line and carefully divided it into eight with a ruler. For the last set, I divided the line by eye.

Mannikin Frame - 3
Copied from Figure Drawing for All It's Worth
Graphite Pencil on Paper

Loomis stresses the importance of practising with the mannikin frame and even over the few drawings on this post, my copies of his figures became more interesting and animated.