The last post? aka Final Portfolio!

I never thought this day would come! Our final blog post! Dare I say it, I'm a little bummed out.  However, I'll be in Amy's life drawing class again next semester, so I'm getting over it pretty fast. This semester went by so fast! As I worked through the class I never really felt like I was improving until the last couple of weeks. I've been reviewing my photos and progress and I admit that I'm a bit proud of myself.  I've never really been all that great at drawing the human form but I think I'm finally starting to get an understanding of it. Even my gesture drawings have improved, one of my best is "final gesture 5".  I feel that is easily conveys what position the model was in and clearly shows the collar bones/shoulder girdle. My shells also improved. After a couple attempts I feel that I know have a quasi relationship with my shell and am starting to understand it's shape and how to translate that onto paper. I really Enjoyed working with the ink and felt very comfortable with it.  Because of this I think that "final homework 3" and "final homework 4" are stronger than my first two homework assignments.  I really liked a lot of my long drawings, which made it difficult to choose just five (in fact, I think I may have added six).  My favorite was my drawing of the Turkey from out trip from the Bell Museum.  I thought that drawing outside of the classroom was a great experience that I don't get the chance to do very often. I also feel that although this drawing is just of a skeleton, there is a certain attitude to this Meleagris gallopavo.  I spent a lot of time in the detail of mapping out the neck and head because I felt that it was the most interesting part of the animal.  I also took the liberty to relax and take my time shading in the bones to make them as dimensional as I could.  Charlie (my manikin) also took form as I finished up the last of his muscles! he looks pretty good if I do say so myself.  While making the manikins was difficult, time consuming, and frustrating it really did help me understand how complex our bodies are.

Tuesday was our last long pose day and the last day of class.  Since it was freezing in our room our model got a little creative and had us draw gestures of her getting dressed.  This was a challenging yet interesting task! The fabric complemented the body nicely and helped to accentuate her poses.  She did a great job with it and definitely challenged us.  After some gestures we did a long drawing with the model clothed.  This was different and a little bit hard, although you wouldn't think it would be that much of a challenge.  I feel that I could have done better on my long drawings but I was a little fidgety thinking about the rest of the things I have to do before finals are over.  I ended up doing two drawings, one of the full body and then I tried my best to do a portrait drawing.  It's a little off, but I've never been good at portraits.  So in this light.. it's not THAT bad.  Our model also said it was a beautiful drawing-which meant a lot coming from the person you're drawing.

Portrait Attempt

Overall it's been a really great semester! Thank you for all of your patience and knowledge Amy! I'll see you next semester-I'm looking forward to it!


LINKS:
Flickr main page
Long Drawings
Gestures
Homework
Manikin

vacaciones!!!

I'm dying for Christmas vacation! after hearing people brag all week about not having anything to do during finals week I'm about ready to snap. I swear finals week was designed to torture art students. This week we had our third shell drawing due.  I was really pleased with how mine turned out. I'm really comfortable working with India ink so I'm looking for new ways that I can push myself to do interesting things with the ink.  I'm also feeling more comfortable drawing my shell.  We had small group critiques and I received very nice compliments. Really, the only suggestion was to make the contour of the inside of the shell a little deeper so that the outside wall of the shell doesn't look so thick.  I also enjoyed looking at everyone's work and was very inspired by how people used bright colors.  I stuck mainly to brown and black and feel very comfortable with them.  So, color might just be a way to push myself.  We also learned about the structure of the hand.  I always thought that our hands were incredible tools.  If you think about it, it would be really difficult to function without hands. I've always had difficulty drawing hands. I attempted it in Drawing one for an assignment and they turned out.. alright.  We were to depict emotions such as mad and joyful through hand gestures and marks. 

hands! from drawing 1 way back when, I apologize for the less than perfect quality of this photo, I had to go digging to find it!

Life Drawing 1 hands

Thursday we worked on the skull. I'm a little frustrated that we're working on the skull last when I feel like it's the most intricate structure. I find it so interesting that each skull is unique and literally shapes our face.  In my drawings I've notice that I've had a hard time making the size of the skull proportional to the rest of the body.  I think understanding the structure will help me keep the skull more proportional. 

this one got a little comical, I tried to exaggerate the cheekbones and add some contour lines.

9 days?

It's hard to believe we have less than nine days left in this semester. On one hand thats great news because I'm about at the point of pulling out my hair (I can't wait until I get to grad school to see what happens then) and yet, on the other I fear I might go bald from the stress of thinking about all the stuff I have yet to do. Like... six lockers full of bisqued pottery in the ceramics lab that all must be glazed, or two shell drawings and a final portfolio in life drawing, oh yeah, then I forgot about a case study presentation (thank god I got the actual report done tonight, no wonder I feel like I'm a few brain cells short), theres a lot more, but I'm whining so I'll stop. Anyways, last week I promised a picture of my friendly bird friend.  In my usual fashion, I have named him...... Enrique. Poor guy only has a neck, I spent quite a bit of time shading him since I feel like I've been deprived of shading things in for far too long.

Enrique the Turkey.

Moving on, Amy gave us a break down of what we have left to do and it was a little overwhelming. I hate when that happens, just when I start to see the light at the end of the ridiculously long tunnel, a bus crashes. So, I'll be working on a lot of muscles for Charlie this weekend, along with another shell drawing, as well as some other joyful homework.  I'm a little worried about next semester since I'm actually taking more credits than I did this semesters. However, my theory is that I have an online class and worse comes to worse, I'll do work for that on weekends. maybe.  Next semester will be my last though and since I refuse to stay another semester after that I'm just going to push through it. I'm sure you'll hear alllllll about it since Amy is taking me on as sort of an independent study in her life drawing 1 class next semester. (yay for blogging!).  

Just a quick update: today we did a long pose, which was kind of humorous. Our poor model must be so sick of is, we were a little particular getting her into a position that worked for everyone. I give up every time we take a break because no matter what it's never the same as before, but she does her best and I don't feel like being a pain over things being off by a couple centimeters.... although it really does make a difference. :( Heres the results from today's long drawing!