Finding Loomis

     In the initial phases of wanting to better myself as an artist I found myself completely overwhelmed at all of the possible starting points one could begin at. I won't list everything I found here, but instead will focus on what I discovered ultimately made sense to me. For my part I wanted to focus on the ability to draw faces - this was something I considered far, far beyond my current ability. If I could draw a face, I could draw a person; if I could draw a person, I could draw anything. 

    As any normal person does when wanting to learn a specific skillset, I perused numerous YouTube videos focusing on all manner of sketching basics. In the course of my research one word kept on presenting itself: 'Loomis'. I had no idea what this was. I had no idea if it was a person, a place, or something else. What I did know is that videos using the 'Loomis method' absolutely clicked with me. After a bit more research (at this point I know a good number of artists are giggling at me right now) I discovered that Loomis was a name! Specifically William Andrew Loomis, a prominent 20th century illustrator who influenced all manner of media throughout the century. Norman Rockwell, comics, advertising, you name it and Andrew Loomis and his methods were more than likely there in some way, shape, or form. 

    So what is the Loomis method exactly? In short (and of course corrections and clarifications are welcome), it is the idea that the artist should be observing and drawing more than just what they see. For instance, every person has a unique face and head, but what ultimately is a head? What is it that the face is set upon? How does it move, how does it change based on perspective, and how does this affect the way the artist draws what they're observing? According to Andrew Loomis, it comes down to the idea that a skull in general is a sphere, with a rectangular projection for a jaw, with lopped off sides to mimic the flat nature of the sides of a typical head.

    Rather than listen to me stumble through a sub-par description, though, I'll quote the man himself on his method (from an excerpt in the preface of his book Drawing the Head and Hands):

    The big difference between the completely amateur attempt and the well-grounded approach is that the beginner starts by setting eyes, ears, noses, and mouths into blank white space, surrounded by some sort of an outline for the face. This is drawing in the two dimensions of height and width only. We must somehow get into the third dimension of thickness, which means that we must draw the whole head as it exists in space and build the face upon it. By doing so we are able not only to place the features, but also to establish the planes of light and shadow, and, further, to identify the humps, bumps, and creases as being caused by the underlying structure of muscle, bone, and fat. ... It seems more logical to start with a shape that is basically like the skull, one that is simple to draw and is accurate for purposes of construction. This can be done by drawing a ball resembling the cranium, which is round but flattened somewhat at the sides, and attaching the jawbone and features to it. ... The sculptor starts with a form of the general shape of the face attached to the ball of the cranium. He could not do so otherwise.

    I highly encourage you (if the interest is there) to check out his book. So far, it has been incredibly enlightening, and for the first time in my life I drew a face:

I know, it's not amazing, but again - it's mine.

    In addition, I've been experimenting with drawing heads from various angles (sans detail, as that's not quite the point at this moment in time, though for a couple of heads such as the above I did indulge a little):

I turned one into Daredevil and another kind of... Batmanish.

    That's just a small bit of the heads I've been practicing. These ones are done using pencil and markers (for the coloring, which, I quickly realized my ignorance on paper types led to some bleed through - lesson learned!). I have been practicing on my Surface tablet as well, though for as useful as being able to start with a perfect circle is, I'd like to quote Andrew Loomis once more in response to any majority use of it (again from the preface of Drawing the Head and Hands):

   [This] simple plan ... is the only approach that is at the same time creative and accurate. Any other accurate approach requires mechanical means, such as the projector, tracing, the pantograph, or using a squared-off enlargement. The big question is really whether you wish to develop the ability to draw a head, or whether you are content to use mechanical means of projecting it. ... When your bread and butter depends upon creating an absolute 1ikeness, and you do not wish to gamble, make the best head you can by any means possible. However, if your work is to give you joy and the thrill of accomplishment, I urge you to aim at the advancement of your own ability.

    Ultimately, the goal is to develop the physical capability to draw a human likeness (and so on from there). To do so requires limiting use of anything too fancy - for instance, most of the circles that create the sphere for my heads are either freehand or drawing around the base of a Raid can, and lines for constructing the base skull are either freehand as well or drawn using a ruler. Generally speaking, I use my circle and line tools when I'm sitting down to really concentrate and try to learn a concept, feature, angle, what-have-you. Otherwise, I'll practice freehanding the entire piece. This brought me to a deeper understanding of the pencils I was using - which was a rabbit hole that I never knew existed. I tried many different grades of pencil lead before landing on 2H as what felt right for me, though that may change as I develop finer control.

    Alongside what I've read in Drawing the Head and Hands I've also been watching various videos on the Loomis method like the following from the excellent Stan Prokopenko: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAOldLWIDSM

    My plan is to continue practicing base skulls from various perspectives, remembering not to worry too much about specific detail, until I'm comfortable enough to be able to sketch one freehanded with confidence. I also have some other basic line and circle practices that I've been doing, but that's probably worth going over separately in a future post soon. For now, these examples are the most current representation of what I can do, which is not a whole lot, but it's something.