Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Art manikins

Meet my new friend. She hasn't got a name yet and is a bit stiff, but is warming up nicely for her role in my what will be my new studio downstairs. I came across a sale on good quality manikins in an art store in Ottawa so decided I'd buy this 16 inch one. I used to have one years ago but with travels, kids using it for playing and just general over use, it became firewood.

Manikins are built in proportion to the human figure with flexible joints, allowing them to be posed in a variety of ways. Manikins are so useful for figure drawing from elementary to advanced artists and are great problem solvers when you haven't got the model in front of you. Besides human models, you can also purchase hand or foot manikins, even animal manikins.

I found this feather from one of the Embden geese as I got out of the car. It was so pristine and fluffy I had to pick it up and now the manikin holds it, waiting to be drawn. This may be the next drawing project...

Finally, a video of drawing an artist's manikin using geometric forms.

1 comment:

Jennifer Rose said...

the set we had in art class in high school were hardly ever used. Probably had something to do with one of the students having drawn genitals on the manikins. They never did find out who did it :p
I think the giraffe ones are cool! :D