Prompt
Draw a skeleton inside a figure in order to see where bony landmarks and muscles align. Remember that this prompt is not about accuracy, and it’s not about making a beautiful drawing.
In fact, it’s pretty much guaranteed that your drawing is going to be pretty wonky in terms of being anatomically correct!
The objective of this prompt is to have the experience of identifying how anatomical landmarks connect to each other. Every time you see a connection, it’s a win!
Tips
Think of the final drawing as the “leftovers” of this exercise. The true objective is to begin to understand where anatomical landmarks connect so you can identify them more quickly.
Examples
Artworks by Toaster, Anastasia, Neil, Pat
Anatomy Lectures
reference images, skull & skeleton
- Skull photos on the Art Prof Flickr
- Skeleton diagrams from Artistic Anatomy
reference images, portrait & figure
variation
Another version of this prompt is to draw a skull inside a portrait, allowing you to get into the specifics of a face.
This is a very useful exercise if portraiture is of interest to you.
Art Media
Pencils tend to work better for this prompt since you’ll need to be able to draw details in the skeleton.
We recommend using 2 different colored drawing materials, 1 for the figure, and 1 for the skeleton helps to see them more distinctly as you draw.
Supply Lists
Visit these pages for specific supply lists: colored pencil, conté crayon, graphite, soft pastel, oil pastel, pencil, charcoal. Explore a comprehensive list of all drawing supplies in Part 1 of our Drawing Curriculum.
Recommended Traditional Art Media
Colored pencil, Woodless graphite pencils, Charcoal pencils, Pastel pencils
Recommended Software
Procreate, Krita, Adobe Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, Paint Tool SAI, Adobe Fresco, MediBang Paint, Gimp
Drawing a Skeleton Inside a Figure
A great exercise for learning anatomy as an artist is drawing a skeleton inside a figure drawing.
By drawing the skeleton as you draw the human figure, you are able to see the connections between the figure and the various bony landmarks, providing a fundamental understanding of how the skeletal structure in a figure functions.
Demo led by Art Prof Clara Lieu.
Draw a Skull Inside a Portrait
Drawing a skull inside a portrait is a terrific exercise to practice your anatomical understanding of a portrait. This video provides beginning to end, the entire process for building the skull structure into the portrait.
Various techniques are explained, that can be used to build up three dimensional volume with colored pencil layering, blending, creating a diverse range of textures and marks, pencil grip, and more.
Demo by Art Prof Clara Lieu.
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