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Anatomy of the Head for Artists

By R. R. Christensen


While pursuing my undergraduate degree, I was privileged to spend several years studying figure drawing under Michael Parker. An artist with a zeal for anatomy, he was known for going above and beyond for his students, and even persuaded the biology department to allow interested students from his advanced classes access to the cadaver lab in the Life Science building.


In a scene so reminiscent of the fabled Renaissance artist-anatomists, we carefully peeled back layers of muscle and tendon under the watchful eye of our instructor and the cadaver lab attendant, to marvel at the skeletal structure and the intricate way it all fit together. We were taught to perfectly replicate the proportions of the human skeleton, memorize the shapes of muscles and their ranges of movement, and  learn the names and functions of everything.


As anatomy is the basis of our physical beings, so too should it be the foundation of our practice. Unlike our Renaissance-era counterparts, the modern portrait artist does not have to turn exclusively to dissection or high-level biology courses to understand the human form. Thanks to the interconnectedness of our global society and the way the internet places the whole of human knowledge at our fingertips, we can each easily access expert teaching and methodologies designed to simplify the complexities of anatomy into digestible chunks and adaptable templates. For the sake of brevity, and  limited scope of this article, we’ll only touch on a few of these systems taught during the 20th century onwards: the Loomis, Reilly, and Asaro methods.


In 1956 Andrew Loomis published his quintessential work “Drawing the Head and Hands.” In it he breaks down the head into large and small geometric forms, outlines basic guides for proportions, and the development of individual likeness. Loomis expertly simplifies the anatomy for the reader and demonstrates how differences at the skeletal level result in the facial features we observe in ourselves and our subjects.


Figure 1: Basic and secondary planes of the head, Andrew Loomis, Drawing the Head and Hands, pg 33



Figure 2: Diagram of skull variations, Andrew Loomis, Drawing the Head and Hands, pg 12


Frank J. Reilly, a student of prominent educator George Brant Bridgman, taught his own method from 1933 up until his death in 1967. Although he never published any of his own writings, several of his students such as Michael Aviano, Ralph Garafola,  and Jack Faragasso wrote about his teachings and later published their own recollections of his instructions. In comparison to Loomis and Asaro, Reilly’s “template” consists of multiple overlapping round forms that represent various facial planes.


Figure 3: Diagram of Reilly method basic forms and planes, Ralph Garafola, The Elements of Painting, pg 131


In contrast to the previous two methods, John Asaro’s system offers a three-dimensional study approach. Available since 1976, the Planes of the Head mannequin provides near endless opportunities for individual practice via turning and lighting the form. It demonstrates two methods for plane simplification, a less-detailed version on the mannequin’s right and a more complex rendition on the left.