Our students often ask us to show full-length drawing demonstrations from our master instructors.
This series will allow you to watch the entire drawing process from the light gestural lay-in
to the final marks all recorded in beautiful 4K Ultra HD.
In this demonstration, world-renowned artist Glenn Vilppu draws a female figure from the
back view using a sanguine Polychromos pencil. Glenn takes his time on this drawing and really
breaks down what he’s thinking about at each stage. You also have the advantage of
the original reference image so that you can compare Glenn’s observations
and interpretations to the real model.
At the end of this lesson, you’ll have gained a step-by-step approach to drawing the figure
in a single color that you can apply to your own work. We recommend you watch this lesson
more than once and follow along at home with your own drawings, pausing the lesson at each
stage so that you can take your own drawing through the entire process.

Okay, I’m Glenn Vilppu, and working with this drawing I’m trying to take and show
the action through gesture, basic procedure, building up forms, using anatomy, but focusing
on the gesture and how I use the pencil cross-hatching. Let’s get started.
Starting with this is my favorite pencil. It’s a Polychromos Faber-Castell and it's royal
sanguine. Why I like this pencil over a lot of the other pencils people use is the point
very rarely breaks. Of course, today when I’m drawing it’ll break. It’s very rare
that it breaks. Also, the fact that you can erase it. You can smudge it. You can do all
kinds of things with it that you can’t do with a lot of the other popular pencils.
For instance, some of the other pencils I don’t care for them; the plastic smell. But, this
is just all and all my favorite, although I do draw a lot with charcoal. I use other
pencils. I’ll draw with a pen, but this is my favorite pencil.
Okay, so now let’s get started. Now, what you’re going to find is that I approach
this just like I do the quick poses.
The critical thing that I’m always going for is get the gesture.
Notice that I’ll take and do a fair amount of drawing in the air before I
put any marks down on the page. I’m moving and moving around, going over. I’m trying
to feel. It’s all about how does it feel. How do the parts take and flow one into the other.
Going over feeling the flow of how it goes.
I don’t have any particular time schedule for this drawing. It might be 40 minutes.
It may be 50. It may be only 35. The point is I’m not trying to take and create necessarily
a finished drawing. I’m just doing a drawing. I’m trying to understand what the forms
are taking into it. I feel the flow. I want to feel. There’s a great twist when you
look at the pose. There’s a great twist, and the model is really twisting so I’m
really feeling the flow of how it goes. Now, if you look at my other drawings, the gesture
drawings, you’ll see very consistent, very, very similar. Notice also, and sometimes this
is difficult for students, because notice how lightly I’m drawing. Really just taking
and drawing very, very, very light going over the surface of the forms.
I feel the flow of how it goes.
In doing this now the question always comes up, gee, how about measuring? How about your
proportions? I do very little measuring. I primarily rely upon the eye. Again, I repeat
all the time that was the famous statement by Michaelangelo. He said don’t measure.
Use the eye. I tend to go along with that. Not that I would try to take and imitate him
by any means, but this in terms of getting the feeling and bringing out sort of the emotion
in the drawing that tends to work. I start measuring too much and I get bogged down and
it becomes a process of copying. That’s one of the first things I tell my students always.
Never copy the model. We analyze it. In fact, my whole approach to drawing could
be considered an analytical construction.
I’m taking and I put things down, and then
I’m adjusting and changing.
So now I’ve gone through. You can see how light this is. It’s very difficult to actually
start to see this very much, but now I’ll come back and I start going the next step,
and starting to take and be a little bit more—I build on that preliminary step as I’m going
through still drawing very lightly and then focusing on the structure.
I’m always drawing anatomy.
I build the figure. You can see, again, those are light.
Feel the pull in the form.
I want to feel. She’s leaning forward. The head is leaning forward. I want to feel
the stretching of the neck as it pulls back. We have a pull, sternocleidomastoid up behind
the ear. The way the muscles, the way the neck is coming forward. In doing this now
I’m really thinking of the center of the spine and the top, the symmetry because she’s
leaning forward toward us. It’s the symmetry that’s taking and communicating that.
I'm thinking across the shoulders coming across down here. Think of the whole rib cage area
as taking and tilting. She’s tilted towards leaning out towards the center. She’s going
in so the corner of the ribcage would be shoving down.
Now, I said that I don’t measure. That doesn’t mean I’m not looking a proportions.
For instance, the proportion from the distance from the bottom of the nose to the top of
the head is equal to the pit of the neck. The pit of the neck, top of the head is equal
to the bottom of her 10th rib. I’m conscious of the proportions. I’m just not going through
and measuring. So I’m building the figure. I’m thinking the way the spine is going
to come down. As I’m coming through I’m feeling the spine going across the front and
containing. I’m slowly building as I go through. I’m feeling that gesture. The gesture
is the whole point in the drawing. As I’m going over I build, you go across the sacrum.
Like I said, I’m always drawing anatomy. Through here I do go beyond what I see and
emphasize the compression. Through…over…I’m going to feel…
...as I’m going through I’m pushing the line over the surface through, back,
and then all the way back into the knee
back here, and we start to feel the compression of the way the leg is a cylinder coming forward.
You have to take and really look. For instance, the heel is here. Well, I have to go past
what I see and draw what I know, and that way I am to feel the Achilles tendon. This
is a cylinder that’s going to fit into the calf and coming around. Without that the foot
is going to take and look like pin the tail on the donkey, a children’s game. I don’t
want to close that off. Now, I come through and feel the other—now, notice that by taking
and drawing so lightly this really gives me the opportunity to take and make change
without having to resort to an eraser.
Or, it also means that I am able to take and draw so freely because the lines and things
that I put down I know are going to just fade and be part of the background.
And I want to pull that arm out a little bit, so I can adjust shapes.
Indicate where that breast is.
We need to bring the other shoulder out here while I’m doing this now. I’m
going to come through and draw the clavicle coming around over the surface, feeling through.
At the same time taking and thinking of the trapezius because it pulls to the clavicle.
Since that arm is coming forward, and here I would take and be pulling out the scapula
coming through. The arm is coming back, pulling through over that surface.
Now when I do this I’m going over the form. I want to feel that shoulder coming out. We can actually
think about the way the coracoid process is taking and pushing that corner. The pectoralis
muscles are coming across off the chest.
Feel the pull down, over, feels really this digging in.
Maybe I carried that just a bit too far, and I’m going to really feel the ribcage
coming around, and it will pick up the scapula on the other side, pushing up.
Over...
Through...
I’m constantly going over the surface of the forms. I’m going to feel this pulling
down and giving a little bit more of a corner.
Now, this arm comes forward going over the surface.
I’m drawing this I’m actually thinking of the
way the thumb comes out. The bone comes forward, feel it pushing down, down, going underneath.
Again, this still is rough. Generally, I would take and not have the fingers going out as
well. We’ll change. I find that a little boring. I’d pull a couple together and then
come up. And that brings out another point is that I have no reservations in terms of
being able to change things that I see. Sometimes certain poses, certain elements of a pose
are just not aesthetically interesting to me. I’ll change them. Or, they just don’t
read. Again, so I’ll take and change things as I’m doing it.
So now I’ve gone through. Now, I’m going to really attack the primary problem here.
It’s the way that figure is twisting. We need to feel, let’s get the breast in the
right place here. See all this coming through, stretching, pulling up. Now as I do this I
can see that instead of drawing that ribcage I need to take and feel the center of the
sternum going down behind, coming through, and we can pick up the breast on the other
side, barely seeing it as it’s pushing back. We just get a little bit of a hint as that
shoulder is going back up. We’re building up to there. So now we’re really starting
to feel the pull as we come around.

Part of this here, if you look at the model you can see that you have a whole series of
folds there. They’re all pretty much the same. Now this is where I would take and really
take my time now. I’m going to change that. Again, this is a perfect example of where
the student gets lost in that they’re trying to copy.
They’re trying to copy the model.
What I do is I have to take and—you’ve got a whole series of folds here. I’m just
going to take a second here to take and design a little bit of how those folds are going
to go. I’m very consciously thinking of the line coming out from behind. I want to
make the first one here fairly tight. It’s coming up. You don’t have to have all the
same number of folds that we see there. I’m taking the next one, and may combine a couple
so I’m taking one out. And as this comes through I’m feeling the leg. This is pushing up.
I’m going to start to take and be thinking of how these forms now are pushing up.
Now you can see I’m changing. I’ve changed the pull, the flow of that form. So those
are very different now. Then I come back from behind that, and I’m going to take and I’ve
removed, so but I want to feel it now that we’re really pushing in first before I go
in to that. Then I have to think this is going that way. So now I’m adjusting. I’m changing.
So now I’m going to come through, and I feel this is going behind.
So you can see now that the folds have taken on a very different character. It’s all coming through.
And I’ll pull in from here. In doing this, you start with now I’m taking in. Taking the
time to really think about what those folds were doing before I just started running through the thing.
So now I’m going to go back. I’m going to take, okay, where is the pelvis? Okay.
Feel the edge of the pelvis and where the iliac crest comes through here,
you can feel this fold now come down.
This pulls down and goes behind.
Okay, so I’m really changing and emphasizing
what we’re working with. So now as we start to pull back into
here, I’m going to pull forms from behind, coming around the corner and down over that
surface, taking and pulling the line.
I can feel the overlapping here now. As we’re
coming in, the arm comes through, the pecs are coming across to her, and we need to draw
that shoulder. There’s a corner here and a very, very clear definite corner. So now
I’m going through and over that surface. This is the first instance in this drawing
though. Let me show you. What I do is I go over. I’m going in a cross-hatching type
of form as I’m going over the surface. These are often very, very carefully laid lines
that are taking and crossing over and around the forearm. So this is the forearm here.
Often, though, we’ll do it as almost a shorthand manner where it’s…
Notice that also what I’m doing is my hand is on the paper. I’ve got my fingers on the paper. Let that come
through. Feel the corner of the clavicle and the scapula. I’m taking, picking up the
lines that are coming from behind or over the surface.
Coming around and going across over the surface of the forearm.
There, I was using that shorthand. The triceps start pulling out.
Then I’m going over the surface of the forearm.
By the way, this is a very traditional approach to taking and doing a drawing. You can look
at many of the artists of the Renaissance.
Everybody from a Pontormo to a Michaelangelo
to a Raphael refined that the crosshatch is an integral part of the approach. Now,
I’m going to back up here. I want to feel the pinching now. At the same time that I’m
doing this I can actually add a tone and go with it.
And I can feel this pushing in the spine here
and pull through. Pick up where the seventh cervical vertebra was. I’m going
to take and make this a bit stronger here. I’m going to make that pull, the pull of
this and them come across. I’m going to emphasize this coming through.
So this is really the gesture.
So you can feel. You can feel the pull of the muscle off of the scapula as it comes
over to the center area of the ribcage. And we can feel the scapula pushing up. So now
I’m going to make this stronger. I want you to feel, maybe even push it even a little
bit more than we see it. So that creates a strong pull. We feel the pull, that lifting
up. Then we started going through.
Now, I come around, I think maybe their pulling the sacrospinalis. Coming down round that
corner and through. See here I’m using tone as a beginning point instead of doing it after
on top. I’m using the tone coming through. I want to feel the muscle now as we come down
carrying through and around. Now I’m thinking, okay, here’s the sacrum. We’ve got these
forms, but now I’m starting to push. It’s going down. It should become very obvious
now that I’m not paying much attention to the light that we see on the model.
I'm really focusing on form, not the light.
Okay. Now, this center of the buttocks here, the part that is facing us. Now, all of these
surfaces now are turning away. So when I’m going over that surface pushing it down.
This corresponds very closely now—if you look at my other material I talk about modeling
tone. Basically, I’m using the modeling tone.
The buttocks surfaces now turn away.
We’re going over that form and across.
You can see now that this, the whole approach now as
I'm pursuing it lends itself to experiencing the pose
and really exploring how all the parts are related.
It also allows me to take and come back at any time and adjust and to play
with emphasizing forms. Now I’m going over that surface, building it up.
With the technology that you’re seeing you are seeing what I’m doing literally better
than any student in my class could see it. So this is really a unique opportunity. You’re
being able to see how I pursue. Now, here’s a point. We have the leg or I should say the
foot pushing up against the buttocks here. So this is creating a compression. This part
of the thigh now is being pushed up. So now what I’m doing is I draw this. I’m consciously
thinking that there is a compression. So as I’m pulling the form down and coming across
all that surface I’m building, I’m taking and going to push...
...the feel of all of this, taking and coming across.
And we’re going over, pull in, coming out now.
We're building into this form. I’m going to make this pelvis really feel like we’re coming.
This point right here, taking and coming over, pushing this line.
Now we’re taking and—see how I’m doing this. I’m also giving that simple volume with the symmetry in here.
So as I come over this surface now I’m going to take and I can push it a bit more.
Building tone, progressively building this thing up. From here it’s going to come down.
Now we’re coming out from behind, and then I can feel the fullness of the thigh coming
through. This is a spherical form now. I’m coming over, through...
going across and over the form.
Notice there is a little leading air coming in between these things,
so you can feel the overlapping.
Again, we’re also getting some more compression in this thigh
now as I come over the surface here. This is coming down.
And we’re coming out from behind.
And as I come out from behind I’m going back up and pulling through.
Now, what I’m doing here, it takes a lot of control
as I’m building the forms now, coming out from behind,
adding a sense of pinch and letting that drop back.
So you can feel this whole flow.
Now, just to keep the idea, the gesture itself is what’s important as I’m getting this.
Now, I’m going to come back in and before I go into anything else here, I want that
to be the reason that I’m taking and doing this.
It’s the action coming through I want to emphasize.
You can see now that I’m changing lines. I will drop this overall into a bit
of tone just to take and drop back a little bit. So we can feel the rib cage underneath
going down. I’m going to take and I’m going to come through, a little pinch.
Now, artists that you can look at that will help you to understand a little bit more of
what I’m dealing with here is Pontormo; Bronzino, a Pontormo student; and also even
Andrea del Sarto, who was Pontormo’s teacher. But it’s not just them. You’ll find you
can look up Corregio’s. Pontormo was a very good friend of Michaelangelo.
In fact, Michaelangelo had Pontormo paint for him designs that he had.
Here I want to feel the sternum coming out from behind. Now you’re feeling that whole
flow as it comes through. I can take and emphasize this a bit more. I’m going to carry us up
into the head now and feel the sternocleidomastoid as pulling up.

You can see how the rhythm this moves and is starting to pull up into the lines here.
I’m taking and feeling the stretching of the neck.
Also, what I’m doing there is that you notice there is a strong contrast between
extremely sharp lines to very, very subtle tones.
Here I’m feeling I’m going to get that trapezius pushing back, filling in.
I’m going over that surface and back.
I want to feel the pull of the neck. I want to feel it pulling back in.
So maybe covered with the hair but at this point I want to feel that stretch.
I want to feel here and pick up a bit of this sharp pull and feel the corner
of the jaw and where we come down in the chin.
Now, we’ve been getting a bit of what I’m trying to get across out. We will drop this
tone. But even though I’m not taking and copying the tones that doesn’t mean that
I don’t look at the way the light is going. I will use it. So now let’s a take a second
here and do just a little bit with the head.
One of the things, and this is a point of looking at, say a Pontormo or a Carregio,
all of the Carrachi’s is that sense of realism.
And with DaVinci, the sense of realism is achieved not by the realism of the shapes
but by the control of the values. The darks are where we would expect to see darks.
That tends to be one of the major difficulties with a student is the lack of control of the
values. That’s why in some of my basic classes the first thing I have students do is do value scales.
Okay, here I’m adding the hair. As I do this hair I’m consciously thinking of the
movement of how I flow. So I’m never very far. I’m never very far from the idea that
this is a composition, and I’m coming through.
Yet, the casual observer will say, well yeah,
it looks like the photograph. But it’s not. I’m using the photograph, but I’m really
designing the subtle little plays that create the experience so that the drawing is
something more than just a photograph.
As I’m working from the live model I’m doing it exactly
the same way, absolutely no difference at all. As you can see I build first, get the sense of the gesture.
Now as we come through I can pull that other arm coming across, feel the stretch. Here
I use a subtlety of tone to imply anatomy. The actual outside shape as you’re looking
at it, fairly simple, practically nothing there, in fact. But as I draw it I’m looking,
well okay, here’s the condyle. I’ll take and emphasize that point.
I think of the biceps coming in.
I will take and hit the slight accent that comes through, feeling where the deltoid and the
triceps are coming through. Then in here we can feel these forms coming in
front, and we can see the—well, maybe you can’t see—but I’m seeing with a bit
of knowledge. I’m taking and drawing coracobrachialis coming down through in a series of three.
I’m actually emphasizing. I’m making it a little fuller so that I can get a little
contrast in the area. You can see the underside. So I’m making that a little fuller coming
through, coming in. I want to go across that wrist, it’s at an angle, and feel that corner.
I can think of where the radius is coming down and the subtle play
and think of where the bone coming through.
Now, into all of the parts I take and carry these lines going through.
I’m thinking how we pull through. Feel the pull. Feel where the knuckles at, coming across.
Feel the knuckle going around.
There’s nothing really, there’s nothing really unimportant.
So as I’m doing the drawing as I’m come back in I’m going over that heel.
I’m thinking about what I started out with that I have to show is a transition. There’s another form back
there. Think about where the ankle bone is. I try not to break everything. I don’t want
to close this off too much. I want to feel the eye. It’s going back in, going around,
over. You can feel the pull going through.
You can see I’ve got out of my way not to continue that line there.
I don’t want to separate. So I’m going over the foot.
I can feel the form going across.
Feel the area of the big toe coming out. Just indicating those now. Look at the other foot.
Even here as I draw that big toe I’m talking about overlapping forms.
You can feel this is coming in front. Then we can feel the way the skin is wrinkling up over. We’ve been
through drawing that form coming down.
Over, pull.
So you can see that as I’m doing the
drawing then this is really--It’s a process of analysis. I’m analyzing. I’m analyzing
forms. I’m analyzing how they go and taking a feeling in here.
I will take and draw a shadow because that’s convenient to take and show what the form is doing.
That I will take just these are lines just going over.
In a way what I do is I orchestrate a reality.
I’m taking and I’m looking at this and I say, wow. To make this I really need to
feel that I’m getting this compression here over that surface. But I want to feel the
buttocks coming down underneath. We have this pulling through and coming across.
We'll go over that surface.
Now as we’re getting along into the drawing here, let’s take and get the other arm going.
Think of end of the ulna. I’m thinking of the condyles and the way the muscles
now take and pull off of that humerus.
Feeling the stretch. I jump ahead to look to the wrist.
I want to take and feel the bone coming out through.
That’s the ulna attaching right here.
We have all of our extenders coming out of a common tendon up here. Here we have the pulling down
to the radius side. We’ll pull, the muscle stops fairly high.
The tendon continues and then we got the others coming down at attached right here. I’m going to take
and give a little more shape to the actual action of the gesture here. I want to feel that this
getting more of a turn into here so we can feel a little bit more of a compression and
then pull out to the finger. I’m going to feel the thickness of the wrist.
And then from there that thumb, the palm pushing out.
So even into drawing the hand here now you’ll see what I’m talking about is gesture.
The gesture of the whole. So as I’m going over the surface I think about the condyles.
One of the things that you can do to help give a sense of depth to a hand is you’re drawing,
coming through and now here we can feel the knuckle through just a series of box or cylinder
forms. But show the palm in between the fingers.
That gives you a sense of depth to the hand.
I changed the pose to take and bring the fingers together, two of them at least, and then now
we can feel the little finger is now pushing off out.
Here we with the wrist, the transition, feel the tendon starting to pull.
Now, I’m going to go back here up the arm, and I’m pulling it straight.
Then I come through and now I feel the volume. Back up
on the other side. That arm is going in.
Now, at this point, what I’m going to back and do is go back and emphasize the action more
clearly. I want to feel this flow as it goes through. So now I’m going to come back in
so I can push and taking and coming in I can add a little bit more pinching.
So now it's the lines themselves. You can take the lines and the tones and start coming across. I’m
going to make this even more—it’s not fitting in right. You want to feel the pinch.
So emphasize. See I’m getting a little bit more bold now as I’m doing the drawing.
I need to take and emphasize, make the eye see.
So now, as you can see, as this is starting to really push, so now I come in and I’m
taking and I want to really feel these lines.
At this point it becomes less anatomy and more composition.
I want to make the eye move up around, and so I’m picking up lines.
These are not things that I see up there at all. Now I’m taking and creating a movement
that’s going over, through. We can take and add the hair in here. Now, I start to
take and get a little bolder. The idea is that when you’re taking it at the end I’m
making lines that are stronger and bolder, and it takes it in a way—giving away trade
secrets here—it masks how hard I had to take and work to get the drawing.

I’m making it look a lot looser coming through,
feel the pull and feel that shoulder coming out.
Clavicle—give it a push. We want it to go behind. I can pull out that ear a bit more.
I’m really using these heavy lines now, sharp lines, dark coming through and
we’ll pull. It’s in here we start to pull and stretch, creating a pull in here.
We take that line and I carry it through. Hit the exit here. Hit the exit there.
Hit the exit here as I’m coming through.
Now, you can feel the whole sacrum now pulling down in near the buttocks, coming out in front
in the corner. Now as I’m going through I will feel the push.
That’s a little sloppy there.
There we go.
I’m going to get a little compression, so using accents here.
Coming through we’re going over,
feel the pushing down,
and I would pick up. Now, I haven’t
talked about the light source at all, but now I can come through there, and as I’m
starting to do that here, as I push these tones on the edge, I’ve been talking modeling
tone. As I push these tones they become in a sense actually a core. Part of the core
shadow. So it gives us the sense of a direct light even though I have not been particularly
working with a direct light idea. I have been working with the modeling tone. As things
turn away they go into tone. So that has been really the emphasis of everything that I’m
doing now. I’m building, push and seeing it coming in front.
So I will dramatically vary the approach as I’m going through.
I want to feel a little bit of the pinching in here of the breast.
It’s real round, and I bring and overlap coming through.
One here. This is sort of a delicate spot here, and I want to feel that it is a flow, but
it’s also fitting the surface here that we have. This is part of the pectoralis here,
but then the breast at this point is taking and going down and in. We’re feeling the
pull across. So now when I come through here I want to push this inside a little bit more.
Feel the overlapping. Now we’re starting to take and get more of a sense of the thing.
I need to push this foot. Don’t want any neglect—taking it behind.
Here’s the big toe.
In here, actually, we would be having the other leg going back.
Now I’m just going to take and run through. I’m taking and creating a little bit overlapping. Here we
can feel this coming out. We pull underneath.
I feel it pushing down. The other foot here now...
...it got a little large on that.
I can turn this a little bit.
I’m not paying all that much attention to the various shapes of the toes.
If I was taking and doing a drawing
where it was really prominent and go into the fact that actually every toe, the toes
all have a series of shapes. They’re all different.
Now, look at this pull…pull. Now, I can really make this neck a little bit stronger.
That’s part of the pull now.
Here I’m going to take and push tone in here and use
the hair as an excuse. It’s within the photograph, but I’m using to take and I’m going to
make this line go in this direction. So I create a—I use the shadow, not the shadow
that’s there. But now I’ll feel the pull stronger coming through.
And I’m going over the face.
Again, I’m trying to, it’s the subtlety. I’m trying to make that line go right along
with the line that we have in the neck. I’m getting a little bit more fullness to the
breasts than actually I see on the other side. And so I take now and I’ll play—see I’m
much closer with the forms here. I’ll come through and use that pulling in and over.
Okay, as I’m doing this and as I’m going through here I’m seeing that I can take
and emphasize this curve a lot more.
You can feel the pull of the wrist.
Just the delicacy of that line coming through.
Feel a little bit more strength to the line of the ulna.
I can take and add—I’m just rendering the forearm or adding crosshatching.
Again, I am picking up a bit of the light that’s there. I’m using that as a way of creating the core.
I don’t think there’s much advantage to doing much more at this point. I think
this got the effect. I’ve covered the idea that you don’t copy.
The point is the gesture itself,
not being afraid to take and change things.
Although, too much equalness, adjusting shapes you’re designing.
I wanted to take and, particularly with this drawing to go
into a little bit of showing the technique that I use for my over surface of the forearm
with a series of crosshatch lines carefully controlled with a buildup of the actual movement.
Okay, now that we’ve looked at the drawing and watched me working. I pretty much accomplished
all of the things that I wanted to in it. It’s a slow—notice I took quite a considerable
length of time in doing this drawing. Take your time. Go slow. I’m constantly designing
and having fun actually doing it. But concentrate, have fun, and I hope you enjoy the process.