Tutored Life Drawing Blog Week 28: The Legs (Patreon)

This lesson on the legs is the first look at the limbs in figure drawing. Each leg is split into an upper and lower half with the knee joint between them. There is a lot muscle in the legs, especially the upper leg, to support the weight of the body.

Limbs offer different drawing challenges to the torso and the head, as they can rotate and bend in a wide range of directions. Other common issues with drawing the legs are the relative proportions of the legs to the body, and the natural asymmetry within a single leg.

This lesson looks at some observational strategies to help with drawing the contours, rhythms and volumes of the leg, as well as introducing some of the surface anatomy.

Tips for Drawing the Legs

Often, when drawing the figure, one works down the body. If too much time is spent on the upper half, the legs tend to get a bit neglected, and may shrink out of proportion. When drawing the full-figure pose, it is a good idea to roughly figure out the length of the legs early on, even if it is just to preserve space for them later.

Breaking up the proportions of the body by comparing the legs to the upper body.

In a typical standing pose, the legs may take up a little under half the length of the body. However, as the model moves into seated, reclining, crouching and various other poses, this changes, so it is a good idea to compare! Pick a reference point that is easy to spot and remember – this might be a dimple on the side of the hip (the greater trochanter, a bump at the top of the femur) or an external contour where the leg meets the hip. Compare the length between this reference point and the top of the head to the distance between it and the feet.

With a rough placement of the legs pinned down, one possible next step is to identify the rhythm or contour lines. The legs each have an asymmetric structure, which results in distinctive rhythms from both front on and side views. This is different to the symmetry of the torso, but it is a convenient tool for navigating down the leg.

Rhythms of the leg (blue) passing from side to side (green) – these are one potential way of working down the leg and foot using rhythm.

Start with light marks and work down the leg, going from one side to the other. Think about how the weight of the body is being distributed – if it went directly down into the knees and ankles, that would put a lot of pressure on the joints! For more information on gesture and rhythm, see Lessons 14 & 15.

The contour of the legs ties in closely with this sense of rhythm. The contour lines are asymmetric, so the dips and bulges are slightly angled between each side.

Possible options for using rhythm to navigate the leg in different poses.

When comparing the dips in the contour of the leg and drawing a straight line between them, there is a tendency for this angle to alternate between sloping in outwards and inwards directions.

Because the legs can bend and turn in so many different directions, and they have a generally long and narrow structure compared to the torso, foreshortening becomes a more frequent challenge. (See Lesson 20 – Foreshortening for more on this.)

Varying angles between the opposing dips in the contours of the leg.

Whilst being broadly cylindrical, the legs do have a distinctive cross section that varies throughout their length. Starting at the thigh, the cross section of the leg is fairly rounded, becoming squarer with a narrower front at the knee, and more like a triangle with a rounded out base at the calf. Typically, more muscle and fat creates rounded forms that compress easily – the thighs and calves – whilst bones create more firm-edged forms, like the knee, shin and ankle.

Some approximate cross sections of the legs in foreshortened poses.

Anatomy of the Leg

The bone and muscle structures of the limbs are characterised by the need to bend, and in the case of the legs, hold the body upright. There are a four bones in each leg – the femur, patella, tibia and fibula.

Bones

• The greater trochanter appeared in the previous lesson, as it forms a landmark on the side of the hip. The rest of the femur is completely buried under muscle until the knee.
• As there is less muscle around the knee, much of what is seen is bone, tendons and skin. The meeting point of the tibia and femur bulk out the knee, and the patella sits on the front. When the leg is bent, the patella slides in front of the end of the femur – so the thigh appears slightly longer.
• The tibia and fibula are the bones of the lower leg. The tibia is easy to identify, with the tibial tuberosity visible as a bump just under the patella, an S-curved ridge for the shin running down much of the length of it and a flattened surface facing the inside of the leg. The fibula is a more hidden – it starts just under the tibia and creates a little bump on the outside of the leg just under the knee.
• The fibula and tibia form the ankle at the bottom of the leg, with the tibia being a smaller bump that sits higher up on the inside, and the fibula being the larger, lower set outer side.
• The muscles of the upper leg are especially bulky and are broadly split into three groups: the quadriceps, hamstrings and adductors.

Bones of the leg – the greater trochanter and tibial tuberosity are features that tend to create surface landmarks.

Muscles

• The quadriceps are a big muscle group that wraps around the front and outer side of the thigh – these four muscles connect to a single shared tendon that attaches to the tibia, with the patella embedded in its structure. On the figure, this tendon tends to create an indent above the knee, before the volume of the muscle rounds out the thigh. The inner side sits lower on the tendon, creating an asymmetric curve. Though unseen, a fourth quadriceps muscle sits underneath and adds volume.
• On top of the quadriceps, the iliotibial band runs from the hip muscles to the knee, flattening out the outer side of the leg and sometimes creating a furrow. (The hip muscles are covered in the previous lesson.) On the front, the sartorius muscle runs diagonally over the leg and wraps around to the knee – this tends to create a dip in the form.
• The adductor group of muscles sits on the inner leg. The definition of these muscles is mostly hidden by surface muscles and fat pads on the inner thigh – but they add a lot of bulk to the thigh.
• The hamstring muscles are the group on the back of the leg. They help bend the knee, and are mostly visible as the tendons wrapping around the sides of the knee. Often the definition of these muscles is concealed by fat, though they do bulge out when the knee is bent.

Muscle groups of the upper leg. These are broadly defined by their placement and how they move the leg.

Understanding how the hamstrings wrap around the knee will help with drawing the overlapping forms. The hamstring group splits into two at the back of the knee, with one muscle's tendon attaching around the outside, and the others looping around the inside. The calf muscles, the soleus and gastrocnemius, slot between these tendons.

The calf muscles make up the bulk of the muscle mass of the lower leg, though there are a number of small muscles to articulate the foot and the toes.

Muscles interlocking behind the knee. Some of the definition will be filled in by a fat pad, but the tendons of the hamstring muscles visibly wrap around to the front, attaching to the tibia and fibula.

The gastrocnemius sits on top of the soleus, and both attach to the heel with the large Achilles tendon. The gastrocnemius has two portions either side of the leg that form a bulge, angling towards the outside of the leg. Underneath, the soleus adds volume, and also creates a 'step' in the contour.

The tibialis is on the front of the leg – whilst there are a lot of small muscles around the lower leg, this one is worth being mindful of because it tends to affect the contour of the lower leg, sitting slightly proud of the tibia in side views and causing it to bulge out, especially when the foot bends up.

Most of the fat in the legs is concentrated around the thigh in fat pads on the outer and inner thigh, with less fat deposited further down the leg.

Some key muscles of the lower leg. Whilst there are other muscles to articulate the foot, they are smaller and affect the surface forms less.

Fat

Fat will typically change the volumes of the leg by smoothing and rounding them out. There is less change around boney areas like the knee and tibia. Fat also plays an important role as a 'filler' to protect vulnerable areas, and this is true of the knee joint – fat pads fill in gaps between the bones and tendons, and protect nerves, on the back, inside and front of the knee.

Fat pads of the legs – the fat pads of the thighs are roughly indicated, though there is typically some fat under the skin anyway.

The body stores fat more readily around the thighs than the calves.

Application in Artworks – Overlap and Contours Around the Knees

The study below is an example of one way to think of the volumes of the leg. Here, the muscles have been grouped into overlapping and interlocking volumes; look for fainter pencil lines that indicate the 'flow' of form under the skin. The leg nearest the viewer illustrates this best, as the outer thigh overlaps the glutes and hip flexor, as do the group of muscles on the front of the lower leg (these include the tibialis and peroneus muscles – a group that moves the foot – as well as deeper muscles).

The more foreshortened lower leg on the right on the image shows how this can help with following forms as they wrap around the limbs as well.

Paolo Pagani - Studies of Three Naked Men, a Right Arm and a Nude Figure Supported by Another (Source: New York MET)

This next drawing highlights some of the more significant contour lines of the lower leg, especially around the knee. When in a relaxed standing pose, skin creases around the front of the knee. Here the contours show a subtle change between a slight bend (left), that shows the forms just starting to stretch and round out the contour at the top of the knee, against the relaxed (right) crease of skin that forms a more teardrop-like shape. This change in surface form varies with the individual, but does happen when the pose of the legs changes. Observe the shapes around the knee carefully.

William Pitts - Study of Lower Legs and an Arm (Source: New York MET)

Key Points to Remember About Drawing the Legs

• Each leg is asymmetric, and has characteristic angles and rhythms as a result of the contours and forms typically not lining up.
• The volumes of the leg have a changing cross contour, affected particularly by the increased fat and muscle in the thigh and more bone and tendons around the knee.
• The upper leg is characterised by having more muscle and fat, whilst the lower leg has less of both, so the tibia can usually be seen throughout its length.

Over to You – Drawing the Legs in Different Poses

Recommended Materials: Any

Further Reading: Lesson 14 – Gesture 1, Lesson 15 – Gesture 2, Lesson 20 - Foreshortening 

Exercise 1: Leg Gestures

Focusing in on the legs is a good way to get practise in understanding the gestural rhythms of the legs, and how the volumes change in foreshortened poses. If possible, try to draw the legs from a wide variety of different angles, including the back and sides as well as the front.

When drawing the legs, try to look out for how the contour lines form angles between their dips and curves, how the forms of the leg interlock around the knee, and how the body's weight is shared between the legs in different poses.

Quick gesture sketches of legs in standing poses.

Exercise 2: Bending Legs

Bent legs offer some specific drawing challenges, especially in seated and crouching poses. Unless viewed side-on, this tends to result foreshortening, sometimes coupled up with compression of forms, either due to the figure being seated, or because the forms of the leg are bent far enough to press against each other.

In these sorts of poses, be aware of the changing cross section of the legs, how compression changes the contours seen, and how the foreshortening can be portrayed by good overlapping lines.

Sketches of the legs in seated poses.

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Further links

>> Read the Week 28: The Legs blog post HERE (All Tiers)  
>> Watch the Week 28: The Legs main lesson HERE (Student & Life Tiers)  
>> Watch the Week 28: The Legs demo HERE (Student & Life Tiers)  
>> Practice your drawings with our photo set HERE (Student & Life Tiers)

Find links to the whole Tutored Life Drawing Course HERE