Page:Drawing for Beginners.djvu/75

 shape, a swelling, a curve, a bone, or a tendon, that is all I ask.

Another time we might try a 'full-face' or three-quarter view of a foot. And as this presents us with the problem of foreshortening, let me advise you to begin by drawing the foot in a shoe and stocking; afterward draw the foot in the same position without the shoe and stocking, for the very same reason that we first drew the hand gloved, and later ungloved. The covering simplifies matters. Instead of the angle of the toes and toe-nails we have the broad sweep of leather covering it all in a three-cornered form.

You may prefer to draw the foot with the heel on the ground. I have chosen to represent the heel lifted. For one reason it gives action and life to the position, and for another presents a more acute and more interesting angle.

We have the leg representing one angle, and the foot yet another angle, and the apex of this angle lies in the ankle, which we know to be the end of two bones. The ankles are the ends of the leg-bones, the wrists are the ends of the arm-bones.

When we are very small we usually draw the feet as two little spoon-shaped objects, something like a couple of feeble golf-clubs, which is not so very wrong in effect.

Therefore, when we draw a foot, no matter what the position may be, the two simple angles of foot and leg are most important. Once they are settled we can devote ourselves to noting the tread of the foot and the heel, the curve of the toes.

Margery has not a very big ankle; the outside bone is higher and clearly defined; the inner one is barely seen. Partly by observing the folds of the stocking, and partly by deduction (for we know the ankle-bones are opposite each other), and also because of a shallow depression, we mark the position of the bones. That, you see, is a valuable fact. Ankle-bones settled, we next mark the curve of the heel, which is slightly exaggerated by the thickness of leather; then we note the curve of the foot as it treads on the ground,