One of Andrew’s many realistic oil paintings, First Car (1952). He had an exceptionally endearing way of tackling dynamic movement, odd perspectives and challenging poses that was distinctly him, something I found inspiring (if not somewhat nerve-wracking) when I found his books last year.

Alright! Andrew Loomis was an artist I was quite excited to cover at some point, because he was a major catalyst for helping me reconnect with drawing last year and thus is an illustrator for whom I hold much personal meaning.

Andrew’s book Drawing the Head and Hands was a tome I’d had one my shelf for several years when I kept telling myself I should try to draw again someday. I’d pass it daily for months on end, unintentionally relegating it to a position of ornament, 154 pages standing proud and yellow in their Loomisian gaiety as a guilty monument to my self-perceived lack of dedication in picking up a pencil. It had, in a way, become the manifestation of Tsundoku, a Japanese aphorism for books you buy with no intention of reading. Ironically, that book is a scant two feet away from me at this very moment of writing, still waiting for me to return to it in earnest once more.

My exceptionally clumsy first steps of trying to learn to draw again, from Andrew’s Head and Hands book. At this point I was 28, I hadn’t been drawing since 2007 and I’d never even drawn a person before, so this was like opening the back door to Hell and tripping down the first flight of stairs.

At this point, I was at one of the lowest points in my life: I had been in a long relationship that was headed for marriage, one that I was forced to abruptly end. I lost a job I had been working for a decade due to injury taking away most of the use of my hands, and I was losing my house. I needed something to try and occupy myself with while I spiraled into the abyss, and when I gazed into it, Andrew Loomis gazed back.

In that moment I got to work on trying to learn basics of form and anatomy that had previously petrified me, the squalid specter of perfectionism finally held at bay just long enough that I could make the first clumsy mistakes in learning to draw actual humans from his book. He had a way that made things far more accessible than I expected, and his tone in writing and many examples of work showed you just what things could look like if you practiced like he did.

And DAMN if he wasn’t good at it.

Still one of my favorite pencil drawings from him: the ability to pop the figure with distinct depth from the background while showing off a beautiful understanding of the properties of light, texture and form, still staying a little loose near the edges. His draughtsmanship is something I’ll always greatly admire and remains something I love revisiting whenever I need to brush up.

However exceptional his drawing ability was, he had a special way with painting as well.

Loomis captures a contentious moment here, but for me so much of the intensity is ignited in this scene by the simple white highlight in left eye of the man in the foreground. It’s like a bullseye in the middle of the painting, a vivid mark that is harsh and stark against the muted reds and cream, highlighting the uncomfortable intensity in that gaze.

I’ll put a few favorites underneath here, there’s just something about the way he pulls of faces and figures that fascinates me to no end, but they also demonstrate great craftsmanship and a thoughtful eye for how loose you can still be sometimes in realism while not jumping into something more impressionistic.


All three are painterly, dramatic and wonderful to study in terms of lighting and colour choices. Personally, I was far more familiar with his drawing work until this opportunity to write about him, and getting to delve into his painting library has been an eye-opening experience as I begin on my own journey with learning to paint this year.

A wry twist of fate then that in learning something completely different a year later but just as foreign to me as drawing heads and hands…

…it would all come back to Andrew Loomis.


Sources and Bibliography:

My own photos, in addition to

http://www.artnet.com/artists/andrew-loomis/first-car-BrjJ31-lBtsigoHGLj-aQg2

http://poramoralarte-exposito.blogspot.com/2016/03/william-andrew-loomis.html