Anatomy quick tips - SIMPLIFYING ARM BONES AND MUSCLES

CHARLIE PICKARD continues his ten-part series of quick tips to improve your figure drawing; this month, how to tackle the complexity of arm anatomy

- CHARLIE PICKARD

ANATOMY – PART 8

When we begin to study the arm and its varying structures, it can be easy to quickly become overwhelmed. There are many complex and varying movements the arm has to accommodate, each one needing a unique muscle. Housing 24 total muscles, it can be difficult to remember each one in the abstract.

Due to this, the need to simplify this complex structure is absolutely essential if we are going to gain confident control over the arm in our drawings. In this article, we will cover a few useful strategies to approach learning this difficult form in a simple, approachable way. If we use these strategies in tandem, we can go a long way towards mastery over arm anatomy, so study well!

1 Divide and conquer

The first and most important element to simplifying this structure is to split the muscles into simple groups, and the easiest way to do this is to group them based on function.

Approached in this way, the 24 muscles we can struggle to memorise are simplified down to six groups, a much more manageable number. Even better, the simple groups of the upper and lower arm are roughly similar. Both are primarily composed of two antagonist groups, the Flexors and Extensors. Alongside these, both sections house an additional ‘ridge’ group alongside the side plane of the arm.