Midterm Portfolio!

Gesture Drawing 2

Let me start by saying that I cannot believe we're three weeks away from Thanksgiving vacation, this year is speeding by! It's hard to even judge my progress because I feel like we just started. However, I will start with my gesture drawings. I really disliked gesture drawings when we first began, but I think it was because I wasn't comfortable standing, let alone standing at an arms length away, or using my entire body to draw. I'm definitely a creature of habit and after two consecutive drawing classes of sitting and drawing still life's my old habits are dying hard. Gesture drawings really help me get back into the swing of things and how to proportion the body correctly as well as just getting the model's general movement down.  I feel like my photo "Gesture 2" is a good example of how I mapped the model's movement. When looking at this photo I can actually "feel" the stretch in her side.

I also really enjoy long poses, it's nice to switch it up after drawing gesture drawings for weeks straight. However, they're a totally different animal and doing the first one was a little difficult. I had to remind myself how to start and map the rib cage and pelvis, then use landmarks to map out the rest of the figure. "Long Drawing 2" is a good example of how I used landmarks and angles to double check my proportions.

Maniken assignments have also been an integral part of understanding the human form. While frustrating at times, building the muscles individually really does help me understand how our body moves. I think building the spinal erectors was what really interested me most. I think they're incredible how they support our bodies and keep our torso's up right, of course with the help of our abdominal muscles. I also found it interesting that our abdominal muscles actually create a big asterisk that keep our core "together". 

Lastly we got our first homework assignment where we had to do a cross contour drawing of a shell. My shell is pretty smooth and somewhat boring, so my drawing was a little... boring. Creating contours is also more challenging than I thought it would be. I got a lot of good suggestions in our critique though and feel that I have a good idea of how to improve my next drawing.

For the second half of the semester I'm going to work on my cross contour drawing skills. I feel like these are going to take awhile to get correct. It's a totally different way to draw and I'm not completely comfortable with it yet. I am also going to work on using the page more appropriately, while not the most difficult thing to do I definitely need to be more conscious of it.


LINKS:
Manikens
Gesture Drawings
Long Drawings
Homework
Whole Account

first quarter is approaching!!

Contour Shell Drawing #1

I think it's a pretty safe assumption to say that you can tell first quarter is approaching because it seems like everyone on campus is in this mad rush and there's a lot of tensity in the air.  I feel like this year, more than others, I'm just in way over my head. However, I never expected senior year to be easy-just wish it were a little less intense. I'm spending more money on coffee and art supplies than on actual food.  So anyways, Tuesday we had contour line drawings of our shell due. After redoing mine three times over the weekend I was fairly satisfied with my shell. I made a really conscious effort to follow the rules that Amy had laid out and felt pretty good about it. The one major thing I would have changed would have been the use of the page. My shell ended up taking up the entire top half of the page, I'll definitely work on this in the next drawing.  We also did a short little group critique which was very informative. we had a couple critieria in which to evaluate them with:
-achieve the illusion of form
-is there a believable diagonal long axis?
-is the whole shell drawn? how well did they use the page?
-no outlines.
-ever line should be different, specificity of line and form
-evident plane changes, changing the direction of the line.
-does the drawing portray a sense of life?
-why/how is that life being portrayed
-how could it be given more life?

The critique definitely helped a lot.  Critiques always make me want to rip my drawing down, run away and fix it and then quick bring it back. I always have to remind myself that they're to enhance learning and that I should sit still and learn from them. the critique of my shell went something like this: My shell created the illusion of form and my group members liked my line variation.  However, they would have liked to see more contour lines drawn and show more "roundness". They also suggested that I draw the lines depicting the cavity of the shell a little lighter.  The diagonal long axis was evident however it could have been pushed a little bit more, which I agree with. I did depict the whole shell but I think we can all see the problem with the use of my page, no arguments there. They felt that I did a good job trying to be conscious of not drawing an outline and that my line variation helped this.  They said I should try to vary my lines and push plane changes a little more, however after I showed them how smooth my shell was they saw where I was coming from.  They felt that my drawing did portray a sense of life, mainly from the use of line variation and being conscious of not outlining the shell.  Pushing the diagonal long axis and depth of my shell, as well as being more conscious of the use of page space could have helped push this more. I agree with everything they said and am a little anxious about starting the next one!

I feel rusty.

Said "Shell"

I hate to admit that I haven't drawn all week.  Okay, I take that back, I've sat in class and sketched people from behind but I don't think that entirely counts.  I've also been on a "doodling" kick. It's interesting to me that I have a ton of homework to do and am preparing for my senior show and all I want to do is sit and doodle.  Not sure how that correlates to anything, but hey, maybe it's reducing my stress level.  So anyways, this week it was so ungodly hot in our classroom that Amy was nice enough to give a short lecture on the hip muscles for our manikin and then let us go for the day.  So, I got down to working on the hips, which don't quite look like they should, but I don't think the first time you make any of them muscles they are exactly right. However I must say that Charlie looks much better with a little meat on his bones. He has also grown a curious looking handlebar mustache-what an individual.  Class today was canceled, but none of us knew that because the sign was placed on the wrong side of the door, so none of us saw it and sat in the classroom for a good twenty minutes after a very enjoyable fire drill. For next week we have a contour line drawing assignment due on Tuesday. I'm a little nervous to even start this because I feel like it's learning a foreign language.  My shell is currently sitting on my desk and whenever I get bored I'll stare at it for awhile. I hate to be stereotypical, but how "Hippy" did that sound? Anyways, I'll probably start sketching some stuff out tonight on scrap paper just to get the motions going again, then actually start this weekend when the inspiration hits me.  We'll see how it turns out. I did find an interesting artist while doing some searching online. I must say she has to be the queen of contour line drawings. Here's her website! You can follow her on her blog as well.  She's seriously incredible! Although she draws very abstractly and organic in nature and I don't think the forms she creates necessarily represent anything the way her lines form space is amazing! I was very taken aback when I found her work, what a steady hand she must have!

  I also realized that I should have been posting pictures everyday (oops.), I'll just call it an opportunity for learning.

quite the week...

This week has been never ending! I had to really push myself through drawing this week. I was so tired and by the time I got to life drawing that standing and drawing for three hours was the last thing I wanted to do. Although, I think Amy could tell that the class was less than thrilled to be there, so we got a lot of much needed breaks (thank you).  Tuesday we worked from our shells a little bit, I'm definitely a little apprehensive to do a contour line drawing from my shell. Drawing just contour lines is a new way of drawing for me and I'm not totally comfortable with it yet. We also talked about the abdominal structure. I love learning about the muscles on the body-it does make me want to go to the gym even more though. I knew that our abs held together our entire core, but I didn't know how many layers of them we had. It's incredible! I also love that when all put together our abs create a big asterisk that holds our "innards" in and supports our entire core.  Learning about all the structures is really helping me appreciate my body more. 

Charlie, Showing off his new abdominal structure.

Today, Thursday, we worked from the model all day. I was so tired that I really had to push myself and even though I tried not to, I did complain a little bit (mostly under my breath, sorry).  Amy made us step way back from our paper and use only the very tip of our pencil, barely letting it touch the paper and drawing very very lightly. This was super challenging, my arm was definitely hurting by the end of a first couple drawings, which apparently means I was doing it correctly (that's the good news).  I was a little entertained when our model came around and was looking at our drawings and I asked her if it was weird to see twenty some drawings of herself and she laughed and said, "it's very very strange to think that's me".  I give her a lot of credit, she's such a good sport for letting us draw her for three hours. I really appreciate what she does so we have the opportunity to draw from a live model instead of a skeleton.  Our assignment was to complete our abs on the manikin for Tuesday so I worked on that tonight since I'll be working all weekend, they were definitely a lot easier than the spinal erectors (thank goodness!).  I'm also going to try to work on my shell contour drawing this weekend, but that's more than likely just wishful thinking. I also meant to take pictures this week, but that just didn't happen- so maybe next week!