The Bus Queue from Memory
In a memory-drawing exam, you are shown a photograph of a bus queue for 8 minutes. The photograph is then removed. It shows seven adults, two children, and a seated woman holding a bag. Figures overlap strongly, and the queue recedes toward a bus door. You have 60 minutes to draw the scene from memory on A2 paper. The candidate's first attempt shows floating figures with no ground line, oversized heads on the distant figures, and the crowd arranged as a flat frieze across the page. The candidate remembers faces and clothing details but not the spatial structure. The examiner's note says the drawing must show convincing depth and figure proportion, not photographic detail.
1. Describe an observation-to-memory encoding strategy the candidate should have used during the 8 minutes.
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Do not try to memorise faces or clothing first. Encode structure:
- Mark the eye level/horizon and the line where the feet meet the ground.
- Reduce the queue to a big shape, such as a triangle receding toward the bus door.
- Count and group: three foreground figures, four middle, two children and the seated woman as anchors.
- Note overlapping order from left to right and front to back.
- Record one gesture per figure: standing, leaning, turning, seated.
- Note two or three value spots and one colour accent.
A quick thumbnail with feet positions and head heights preserves more usable information than a list of facial features. Verbal tags such as 'seated woman at centre, bag on left, child in front' also help retrieval.
2. How should the candidate reconstruct depth using figure scale, overlap, and eye level?
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Start with the ground plane and eye level, not with heads. Place every pair of feet on a receding ground line; figures lower on the page are closer. Use head units to scale: a near adult about 7.5 heads, a middle-ground adult about 6.5, and a far adult about 5. The children should be about 5–6 heads because their head-to-body ratio is larger.
Overlap deliberately: the nearest figure should cut across the middle figures, and the seated woman can overlap the standing person beside her. Her head should sit near the standing person's chest level if they share the same seat height. Add cast shadows or contact shadows under the feet to anchor the figures. A cropped foreground figure at one edge will strengthen depth more than another small figure in the distance.
3. What proportion checks should be applied to the standing adults and the seated woman before adding detail?
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For a standing adult, check: head height, shoulder width about two head-widths, elbow at waist level, wrist near the crotch, and the body's midpoint near the hip. The legs should occupy roughly half the total height. For the seated woman, the torso is compressed and the thigh is foreshortened; the knee should project forward, and the foot should sit on the ground, not float. Her head should be lower than a standing adult's head by roughly the seated height difference.
Build these with gesture lines and simple volumes first. Only after the proportions and ground contacts are correct should the candidate add clothing folds, faces, or the bag. Detail cannot rescue a figure whose feet and head units are wrong.