2 Anatomy landmarks

Now that we’ve established that a knowledge of bone structure, along with the ability to visualise the bones, will be hugely beneficial to our anatomical work, how do we actually go about pursuing this?

We want to, in the long term, be able to essentially have x-ray vision for all of our figure drawing. By improving our knowledge we wish to be able, at a glance, to understand the exact position and proportion of each of the bones making up our figure – although this can be a complex and overwhelming study to undertake.

In order to make this approachable I like to split my anatomy study in half:

-3D constructive anatomy, the study of the three-dimensional aspect of each bone, with the ultimate goal being to tumble and construct each part alone and in a figure (I will outline the general approach to this in a following article). -2D observational anatomy, the study of which parts exist, with the ultimate goal

of being able to identify the cause for any detail that we see. This area is where the most basic lesson on bones occur, focusing on the surface ‘boney landmarks’.

Learning to identify these boney landmarks is the simplest and most effective place to start when looking to study the bones. This practice is one of the best ways to begin our study of anatomy. See on these pages some diagrams listing the most relevant of these landmarks for figure drawing (limiting ourselves to the body; the head deserves its own separate attention).

Try to memorise these landmarks, learn to see them in every figure you draw! They are always present to some degree. The best way to approach this study is to trace these onto your own drawings or photographs and then label them. Try it out for yourself and start to see your understanding of the figure increase exponentially!