Posts Tagged ‘Bones’

Lateral View (Third Right Digit)

Firstly, I knew in my last post, that I mentioned that I would be moving on to the eyes. However, I noticed that it is coming up to a year since I started this blog, and I thought I would spend the next few drawings, redoing some of the subjects I did last year, so I can see if i have made any improvement.

First up, is last year I did a skectch of the tendons on a finger.

Click here for the orignal (short!) post

A few things, firstly I have long given up on colour pencils – dont like them, also I can see in the lines in the original drawing , where I haven’t been confident  which results in that squiggly edge. Shading has been done for shading sake. There is not much thought gone into actual shape.

That’s not to say my latest drawing isn’t error free. I made a school boy error from the Vincula Brevia upwards. It took us a while to figure it, but what I did, was instead of drawing what was there, I drew what I knew.

The angle of the original, had been taken looking down.  You can probabnly see where I have drawn the nail with it curving at one perspective before changing it to try and correct the perspective.

Due to the size I was working on, I didn’t have enough room to really correct it properly, as you can see the middle phalanx bone is somewhat darker than the rest of them. Finally, all distal phalanx bones are not created equal, I wanted to draw it more to what I thought it should look like, than what it was.

One thing I am pleased with, is before starting I decided on what pencils I was going to use for certain areas straight from the start.

Tendons Dark  - 2B, HB

Tendons Light – H, 2H

Bone – 2B, 4B

Edging – B

which I’m pleased I did, as I didn’t end up with the situation I had when drawing the Ossicles.

To end, where  I mentioned in my last post about the black smudgy paper I used, this also left a big black smudgy mess on my scanner.

Related Posts:

• Finger Tendons
• Drawing Skeletons – Curves
• Drawing Skeletons – Surfaces

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.

Related Posts:

• Ossicles – Incus
• Ossicles – Malleus
• Ossicles – Stapes

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.

Related Posts:

• The Ossicles
• Ossicles – Malleus
• Ossicles – Stapes

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.

Related Posts:

• The Ossicles
• Ossicles – Incus
• Ossicles – Stapes

Drawing Skeletons – Surfaces

Bone Surface

This is my third observation post about drawing skeletons , this may well be a two part’er as I was reading a very interesting article about the surface of bones, but there is a formatting error in it, which could essentially split the topic. So watch this space!

Bone is continuously growing or being reshaped right up to the point of which we die. A lot of these changes happen on the surface and their is constant deposition and resorption occuring(building up and hollowing out respectively)

There are also blood vesels, nerves, ligaments etc running along side of the bone who leave their marks, in the forms of canals and grooves. Another point as well, is the forces the bone is experiencing will also leave it marks on the surface.

On top of that, evidence of past fractures and breaks will be present along with any signs of malnutrition,  scurvy and a host of other things.

The drawing itself was done with what I’m beginning to narrowly whittle down from trial and error; a 6B, 2B, B and a 4H set .

Following on from my comments on my scalp post about paper, I happened to have an A5 220gsm Catridge Pad lying around, and whilst not keen on the size, there is a huge noticeable difference in being able to blend the pencil. I may in my new found appreciation, been a bit over enthusiastic in the tones here, but  I think an A4 pad is on the shopping list along with a Mechanical 2B pencil, so I can work finer detail.

Related Posts:

• Drawing Skeletons – Mechanics
• Drawing Skeletons – Curves
• Drawing Skeletons – Types of Bones