My Left Ear
My Left Ear
After drawing all the ossicles I thought I would come outside the body for a change and voila! My left ear. Considering it was back in Frebruary I drew my left foot , you can expect an entire self portrait by 2056.
One word of advice to anyone taking a close up picture of their ear, DO NOT USE A REALLY STRONG FLASH!
The drawing itself was done with the usual culprit of pencils, but to note; the skin around the ear I did with a HB and used bluetack to lighten it – a tip I have seen on a couple of websites.
Again, a word of warning about keeping finger grease of the paper, it really can be a pain. If you zoom into the top of the helix you might be able to make out where I have tried to hide it. I’m struggling to do this on an A5 pad and when you look at artists working a lot bigger than I, such as Clive Meredith the mind boggles.
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The Ossicles
Anterior View of the Ossicles
After sketching all the individual bones, here are all three of them together in situ, but what do they do ? These three small bones (the hammer. The Anvil & Stirrup) carry sound waves from the ear drum to the Cochlea and its a nice bit of mechanics.
First of all, sound waves hit the tympanic membrane (AKA as the Ear Drum) , the vibrations are then carried through the Malleus, Incus and finally the stapes which then takes these vibrations to the inner ear. They effectively act as a lever and give a mechanical advantage, by not just the lever effect, but also my reducing the area of force. If the sound waves went direct from the ear drum to the inner ear, they would be a lot weaker – Its a nice bit of design.
There are also muscles attached to the ossicles which can control the extent of movement which is believed to protect the inner ear from loud noises. Interestingly in Bats, these muscles are highly developed and seem to be crucial in their sonar and echolocation senses.
So there you have it ladies and gentlemen, the Ossicles. As for the drawing itself, I’m not too happy with it. Not just because I used my old pad after the luxury of using the heavier a5 pad, but because after mentioning last week about looking at other areas when it comes to shading, I started all guns in on the Malleus with a 6B which didn’t really give us much room for shading darker areas afterwards. Thankfully the HB came to the rescue on the Tymponic cavity, but my original intention was to have that darker and the ossicles lighter.
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Categories: Human Anatomy Tags: 6B, Anatomy, Bones, Ear, HB, Head, Incus, Malleus, Middle Ear, Ossicles, Skull, Stapes, tympanic membrane
Ossicles – Incus
Lateral View of the Incus
AKA the Anvil. Unlike the Yves Tanguy Stapes and the Jaws like Malleus who have been quite camera shy, finding images of the incus has not been a problem at all.
In fact I have decided, it is the Lindsay Lohan of the Middle ear. My drawing is a composite from diagrams from my anatomy booka and the photographs I came across on the web.
One of the nice things about the photos, I was able to get a lot clearer idea of the surface. One of the sites I came across was the Otolaryngology Houston Texas website which has some great pictures (ironically there are pictures of the stapes and malleus there as well, but did not come across this site when I was searching for those terms)
Just a note on doing the composite drawings, is I am aware of getting something horribly wrong which is where being able to refer to diagrams in my anatomy books help. But I have noticed that a lot of anatomy illustrations will tend to stress a certain part of the picture to fit the context of the article or topic they are discussing. It is subtle but I think it is something you need to be aware of.
I dis start this drawing with a 3B just to see what difference that would make, but quickly abandoned the pencil – it seems superfluos and doesn’t really add anything, so I was back to the usual set of 6B, 2B, B and 4H. I was also using the 135gsm paper again which I am getting more used to blending on. With the extending blending properties of the heavier paper, I have come across a negative; it is more vital to keep finger grease off the drawing and along the short process if you zoom in , you may see how I found that out.
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Categories: Human Anatomy Tags: Anatomy, Bones, Ear, Head, Incus, Middle Ear, Ossicles, Skull
Drawing Skeletons – Types of Bones
The Patella - Knee Cap
Fourth entry in my observation posts about drawing skeletons and this time, taking a look at the different types of bones in the human body. There are five classification of bones used and they are;
Long Bones
Exactly as you would imagine, these are the bones such as the Femur and and Tibia* but also include smaller bones such as the phalanges. It looks like the official explanation is, a bone having a body longer that it is wide. So think more shape than size.
Short Bones
Defined as being approximately wide as they are tall and have the primary function of providing support and strength. Examples of short bones are the Carpals and Tarsals which you would find in the hand and foot respectively.
Flat Bones
These are the bones which act as armored plates to protect vital organs, such as the cranium bones or provide a large surface for muscle attachment.
Irregular Bones
The “Get out Of Jail”card, for bones that can not be described in any of the other categories such as the Verterbrae and thorax
Sesamoid Bones
These are bones that are found where a tendon passes over a joint such as the Patella which is pictured and is also known as the Knee Cap. They provide protection for the tendon and also aide in the mechanics of movement.
The drawing was done with a 6B, 4B, 2B and a 4H , the 4B was used as an attempt to get a more lighter covering than the 6B across the surface. on the subject of shading I would recommend reading the tutorials over at Dueys Drawing . He raises several good points and considerations ,and another interesting thing about his site is you can see his work in 2004 and compare it to his work now – well worth checking out.
* will update with better image soon
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Categories: Human Anatomy, Notes Tags: Anatomy, Drawing Skeletons, Flat Bones, Irregular Bones, Knee, Long Bones, Patella, Sesamoid Bones, Short Bones, Skeleton, Types of Bones
Ossicles – Malleus
The Malleus
Following on from the Stapes, here is the Malleus which is the latin for Hammer.
I wasn’t going to draw it from this angle, but was watching Jaws the other night and – well …
Again had the same problems as drawing the stapes, I can’t work out quite what is happening below the manubrium. My main source for this picture was one of the 19th century Grays Anatomy illustrations from wikipedia.
I am not to keen on using these as sources, as they are more technical illustration than drawing, which the artist would of probably spent six months drawing doric columns before being allowed to study anatomy and then only under strict conditions and with a defined set of rules and guidelines.
Fair credit to them, I would not have the patience to put in half the detail they put into those illustrations.
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Categories: Human Anatomy Tags: Anatomy, Bones, Ear, Head, Malleus, Middle Ear, Ossicles, Skull
