Crib notes
Bridgman Bootcamp offers free high-quality recordings that help you understand Bridgman's books.
The videos have been edited to remove distractions and enhanced with additional commentary, opinions, and resources.
The books are a record of George Bridgman's drawings and some of his writing, and they are worth the cost.
The first lesson will show you why you may need help understanding the books and will include only a portion of the images from the books.
Marshall Vandroff is the teacher and fellow student of George Bridgman in the video series.
There is no "e" in Bridgman, and it's important to spell it correctly for the password to access the forum.
Some people criticize Bridgman's lack of refinement, personality, and storytelling, but his drawings of figures are impressive and worth studying.
Some parts of Bridgman's drawings may be incomprehensible at first glance, but they contain informed lines and a lot of anatomy.
The text is about art books by Bridgman.
There are two smaller books with most of his drawings.
Bridgman's first book was published when he was old, which gives hope to older people.
"Constructive Anatomy" and "The Human Machine" are popular books by Bridgman.
"The Complete Guide" by Sterling Publications is the best collection.
The next half-hour will be a boot camp to learn how to draw through Bridgman.
Bridgman emphasizes having a clear conception of what to draw before making a line.
There are arguments for and against this approach to drawing.
The video mentions an amazing student named Blake who could effortlessly see and draw his ideas.
Bridgman will take readers through a section called "How to Draw the Figure."
The speaker finds Bridgman's book on figure drawing difficult to learn from due to lack of context and difficult explanations.
Three principles to learn from Bridgman's book: simplicity, proportion (active and inactive sides), and rhythm (balance, unity, and rhythm will be covered next week).
The human body can be simplified to three large masses: head, thorax, and pelvic block.
The way these masses are arranged gives the figure an aesthetic quality or rhythm.
Learning to draw requires acquainting the subconscious mind with a certain amount of material, including anatomy, form, and proportion.
The ribcage presses down, stretches and squashes, which is controlled by three masses of bones.
The knee has a form and crunches and flexes. The gluteus maximus makes the upper leg go down to the calf and then into the foot.
Flesh crunches and stretches together, creating a 3D effect.
Curved lines show that a lower leg is going away from us, while arcs show that it is coming toward us.
Artists need to think about graphic design, toward us and away from us, crunched and open, and rhythm when inventing a figure.
Bridgman suggests starting with straight lines to get proportions right.
To make a figure look like flesh, anatomy knowledge is important.
The rectus femoris is a muscle that comes out of the boxy shape of the leg and melds with other muscles.
