motivation....

I definitely could have used a little more energy this week. As I'm preparing for my senior show in November (eek!) I'm finding that it's more difficult for me to focus in classes. Tuesday and Thursday were especially hard days for me and life drawing is my last class of the day, which makes focusing even more difficult! However, it never ceases to amaze me how quickly the time goes by. Learning how to draw the center long axis of the body was a little challenging. I kept wanting to draw the spine because it seems to make more sense to me. Learning about the rib cage was interesting though. I liked how we approached it from a simple "egg" shape. Learning how to manipulate that shape as the model moved was challenging. I'm really enjoying class so far though, more than other drawing classes. I'm really trying to draw with my whole body and be conscious of the marks that I make. My shoulder is definitely more sore than it has been in the past couple of weeks, so I must be doing something right! I'm also really trying to slow down, I know it's still a problem I have, especially when I draw three drawings in the time I should be drawing one.

 

As you can see from my photos I need to work on my ribcage size and it's relationship with the pelvis. I'm also still trying to figure out how it should sit depending on how the model is positioned. Amy also keeps pushing us to "draw with our body" and to try to imagine ourselves in the position that the model is in. I try to keep this in the back of my mind when I draw, that and to try and stay relaxed and not worry about what everyone else is doing (I tend to do that).  I also need to work on my posture, funny that after YEARS of slouching over a desk it takes a class where I stand for three hours to really push the fact home.   It's also strange to me that when I wear "supportive" Dansko shoes, that I paid a little bit of money for, make my feet hurt more than if I wear flip flops. I really think this further proves my point that going barefoot needs to be socially acceptable in our society.  Although that probably wont ever happen, I can still dream. :)

3rd week already!

I cannot believe how fast the first couple of weeks has flown by! This past week has been full of new experiences. On Tuesday we had the opportunity to draw from a model, which was a new experience for me. The model was great and I was quite pleased with my skill level and myself.  Drawing for thirty seconds was a little interesting. I know I’m a fast drawer, but thirty seconds leaves a lot to be desired. I feel like I started to get the drift of gesture drawings though. I really appreciated the time that we took to slow down and do line contour drawings of the model.  This is also a new skill to acquire and hone in on though. It’s very challenging to think of how to express the curves of a form using only lines. Maybe I wasn’t really paying attention in my other drawing classes, but I don’t remember ever doing this before! I’m a little anxious to do our first homework assignment because I really have no idea how I’m going to tackle doing a shell with only contour lines. I really didn't think I would like life drawing much, but the more we draw and exercises we do, the more comfortable I am with it. I’m already seeing positive benefits from it. My sketches seem to be more realistic and my line work has gotten much better. I feel like it’s helping me to understand form and space much more quickly that I thought I would. They say it takes 10,000 hours to learn and be proficient at a new skill.  I’m not sure how much I’ve dedicated thus far, but I can’t wait until the end of the semester to see how much my skills have improved.  

first long drawing!

spinal erectors!

Today  (Thursday) we got our mannequins! Mine has thus far been very patient with me as I scraped all of his old muscles off and started to create his new ones.  I actually didn't think that creating the muscles was that complicated. Although, they do look as if it's just one big block of clay, not layers and layers of clay layered on top of one another. I'll be anxious to get to class on Tuesday to see if I did everything correctly. I've always been very interested in the human body so piecing this mannequin together is very interesting to me. We are amazing creatures, really! Our body has the ability to do things that our brain can't even comprehend.

2nd Day!

The second day went much better for me! I focused on really slowing down today and found a niche that allowed me to do so. We did 5-10 minute drawings of the spinal column from different angles. It's really incredible to me that our bodies are capable of so much movement just from our spine alone. I started my drawings out by drawing the specific curves, in my efforts to slow down I then went into detail and started to draw the bones directly over the lines I had previously drawn to represent the curves in the spine. I did minimal shading/cross hatching to help me understand the forms of the bones. Even though my drawings looked much more meticulous and less free flowing compared to everyone else's drawing, working this way really helped me slow down and focus on the line the spine was creating. At the end of class I felt really accomplished and proud of my drawings. I left with a good understanding of the vertebra's that make up the spine and the landmarks that can help us make sure our bodies are in proportion. I'm really excited for the next class! Over the weekend, if I have time, I'm planning on doing some sketches of bones just to work on form a little more.

First two days!

Life drawing thus far has been quite the experience; I'm actually enjoying it so far! The first class period, as in any drawing class was a little monotonous, but I understand the importance of the exercises that we do. The whole process of learning to stand up as we draw is a new curve, but I almost like it better. Like Amy (my professor!) explained in class, you are able to use your whole body to make a line, which brings more energy into the work.  Our first couple of exercises were of drawing shells.  First we started with drawing blind contour drawings of them. I had a couple problems with this, first off, I'm a very fast drawer.  I've always been a little too quick for all of my Professor's likings, but I've learned to live with it. It's something that I know I need to be conscious of and am going to work hard at this year. So instead of working on one blind contour for the entire amount of time I produced around sixteen. The second exercise was a continous line drawing of the shell.  Once again, my speed ended up hindering me a little bit. My drawing became dark very fast and looks as if I had gone in and shaded the whole thing. In all truthfullness, it is one line, just many many layers. I definitely failed on slowing down the first day. Evidence is shown on the left. I chose to take pictures of two of the blind contour drawings that I really appreciated and felt captured the shell best. The last picture if my continuous line drawing. The outline became really dark because they were the lines I used to trace back as I creating the different segments of the shell. Even though we were only supposed to do the outline of the form, I went in and tried to add the pattern on the shell, once again because I was whipping through the drawing way too fast. Overall the exercises were a great refresher after not drawing all summer!