Defining Beauty: Andrew Loomis- Women

May I confess that two weeks after entering art school, I was advised to go back home?¹

- Andrew Loomis, Figure Drawing for all it's Worth, pg. 17.

Andrew Loomis, unwilling to be discouraged from becoming an artist, applied a tenacity and logic to his learning which not only enabled him to become a very successful illustrator, but also an excellent teacher. The skills he learned under the tutelage of George Bridgman, Ernest Blumenschein, and Frank Vincent DuMond, combined with the knowledge he gained from his direct experience, were broken down and put into book form to create practical lessons for the beginning art student. Loomis' efforts were unparalleled at the time, and the lessons he recorded made for a series of instructional guides still highly sought after today.

Here are a few of Loomis' thoughts on the construction of the female head:

When you are drawing women's heads, be sure to use freedom and looseness of technique in representing the hair. Usually simple planes are much more effective than the photographic representation of every strand or curl.

The camera sees everything in roundness; the artist sees its rhythms and its angles.

For some reason a little masculinity is much more tolerable in a woman's head than roundness and femininity is in a man's. The fashion experts seem to pick the lean-faced, angular-jawed, and bony types of models oftener than the purely feminine types. It may be that to get the rest of the figure slim enough to go a fashion page, a bony face is required. Somehow the appearance of bone in the face does seem to give more character to a woman, just as it does to a man. Perhaps most of us admire leanness more than plumpness because leanness is hard to attain and keep. At least in that we have changed since the days of the old masters.

In drawing a fairly young woman, we let very little of the anatomy show on the surface, though we must know what is underneath to make the surface convincing.

All this means that in drawing women we still must be conscious of planes, even if we do not stress them as much as we do in men. [The Plate above] shows a man's head contrasted with a woman's head in the same pose. Note that the feeling of planes is evident in both, but more stressed in the man's head. Note also that the handling of the mouth and nose is more delicate in the drawing of the woman than in that of the man. If I do nothing else here I want to impress on you that smoothness and roundness are basically associated with the female, and squareness or angularity with the male. The degree to which you emphasize the one or the other in either case is determined by personal feeling about your subject. [The Plate below] demonstrates how blockiness may be applied to women's heads.

The over-all proportions of the female head vary only slightly from those of the male head, but the bone and muscle structure is lighter and less prominent. In commercial art feminine types with rather firm jaws seem to have more appeal than do the very rounded. Women's eyebrows are usually a little higher above the eyes than men's are. The mouth is smaller; the lips are more full and rounded, and the eyes slightly larger. Do not stress jaw and cheek muscles.

It is almost impossible to draw a beautiful woman unless the construction and placement of features are accurate. Keep the nostrils small and watch carefully the placement of the jaws and ears. The eyes and mouth must be in perfect placement and drawing to avoid some very strange and unpleasant results. Just now, the brows are left fairly thick. A few years back they were just a thin line. Personally, I like natural-looking brows, but brows and lips, since they are often made up, follow the trends of fashion. The same is true of hair-dos. Look for the mass effect of forms in the hair rather than the detail. Beauty of the face is beauty of proportion, so learn the proportions first; then study your subject individually. The fashion magazines contain quantities of material for study, and will also keep you up to date on make-up and hair styles. Be careful not to draw flat lips. Place the highlight on the lip very accurately; if it is in the wrong place it can change the mouth and the whole expression.²

The Loomis books are expensive, when you can find them, but they are wonderful resources. If you search the web, digital copies have been uploaded as PDF files at several sites, but, if you are like me, and like to actually hold the book in your hand, then a cheaper compromise is available. Walter Foster Publishing has Drawing the Head and Figures in Action in print, which are abridged sections from Loomis' Figure Drawing for All it's Worth and Drawing the Head & Hands. These books are simplistic, but still contain Loomis' valuable and informative drawings.

¹Andrew Loomis, Figure Drawing for all it's Worth, (The Viking Press, New York, 1944), p. 17.

²Andrew Loomis, Drawing the Head & Hands, (The Viking Press, New York, 1956), pp. 75-85.