Foreshortening is an interesting concept to grasp as an artist. The way I see it is that it is great to learn the proportions of the body, the head in relation to the torso, length of arms in relation to the legs ect…but apart from drawing a standing figure head on, these ‘rules’ go completely out of the window when it comes to dynamic poses, obscure viewpoints and foreshortening. Just as you see with perspective, the eye misguides us into fitting what we can see into our field of vision, and our brains try to make sense of it through our past experiences.
I think the key to getting over this is to throw out all conscious sense of what you understand you are seeing, and just draw what you are actually seeing.
Foreshortening can add dynamic, depth, and intrigue to a drawing, especially a portrait or figure drawing. For this exercise I drew myself in a mirror, but also included what I could see outside the mirror, ie my legs reclining towards the mirror, giving it a rather surreal angle to the picture.
I really like this effect which adds an intimacy and dynamic to the drawing. Involving the viewer as if they are there in the picture themselves. But as you can see from the above image, body proportion has no rule here, in fact the exact opposite, the proportions are completely distorted out of all proportion!, but that is how objects are truly seen. It begs the question ‘how valid is it to research bodily proportions (to an extent) when the majority of the time you will be drawing figures at angles and perspectives that distort that very proportion’. It’s an interesting question to ponder, or how much time do you spend learning the effects of foreshortening?
Eeyanski Arts 