Dec 13 - Dec 20 (Final)

It's so strange to be writing my last blog entry for this class. I still feel like I don't know where to begin; you'd think that I'd get the gist of it after doing how many of these??
We got to do something a bit out of the ordinary in class this week (our last life drawing I class). Due to the freezing weather we actually did our quick gesture warm ups with the model putting on one more article of clothing in each pose. It was pretty difficult but the pictures that I came up with were fun! We then did a longer drawing. Again, the model was dressed. It was rather difficult drawing a body and making it seem like they aren't clothed. We also have had our final shell to work on. I managed to get mine done early, thankfully!

 

This class went really well. I wasn't sure what to think when I entered Life Drawing I. Of course, it started out a bit rough, especially after not seriously drawing for a few years. It was also difficult to get used to this new "style" of drawing; a more gestural line drawing. After shading and coloring and being so extremely picky, I found this new way of drawing to be such a big change. With that said, I do feel like I got so much out of this class. I found a new appreciation for the human body, muscles, skeleton, everything. We definitely learned so much more about the body than I thought we would; stuff that just drawing wouldn't have taught us. 

Drawing the shells was also pretty rewarding. Although the shell got pretty old after the second and third drawing, I can see why we had to do it 4 times to truly get the hang of it. The manikin (I still have yet to figure out the proper way to spell that) was also quite the workload for this class. I wish we would have started adding muscles right away at the beginning of the semester just so we wouldn't have had such a hefty load towards the end.

I think this was a great class to take and would recommend it to anyone. 

You can see my "Final Portfolio" HERE.

Dec 6 - Dec 10

This week has been pretty busy in class. On Tuesday the 3rd shell was due (with ink), and it was really cool to see everyone's. As overwhelming as it was to ink the shells, they all turned out really great! I knew before class what I was going to need to work on with my next inked shell but seeing everyone elses shells gave me some good insight for my next (and FINAL) shell. I'm pretty happy with this one, but I feel that I got a bit heavy in the ink. I would have rather had a more light color. I also need to add some black to my "red-orange" (though it appears more pink than anything) to tone down the vibrancy. Luckily where I struggled the most, the hole in the shell, won't be in my next view. I will definitely have enough to worry about with the next view, so not having to deal with that should help my ink ability.

After the quick feedback on the shells we started working on the hands. They were pretty difficult for me and my first drawing, which I didn't post, was more "realistic" and round, but I think my attempt at doing a boxy approach was more successful. Not too sure how I feel about my drawing over all though. It was definitely a struggle.

Thursday we got to do skulls! I was pretty pumped about this because I had wanted to focus on the face for a while. I actually really enjoyed drawing the skull a lot; class was really relaxed and that helped. This drawing was pretty good for me, I don't have anything to complain about. Hopefully we get to do another skull drawing for our next/final class!

Nov 29 - Dec 3

This week has gone so incredibly fast (as I'm sure the next few will). Tuesday was a quick lecture about the remaining muscles we need to add to our manikin....alllllll 50 of them. Needless to say, I left the class a bit discouraged.
We didn't draw on Tuesday or for the week prior, so getting into drawing today (Thursday) was pretty difficult, but nice. The quick poses that we usually do were pretty difficult for me, especially since we started to add the collar bones and shoulder blades. Below is one of my better of today's 2 min drawings.

While I think all the information is there and a viewer can understand the body, the craftsmanship is definitely not. I was excited but not at all ready to do another long pose. I was relieved to find out that we would be focusing on the upper body, while the rest was just optional. I did from the top of the head to about down the the ankles. The hands were my main struggle (especially the fist), but I really had wanted to attempt them.

I can't believe class is coming to an end. I can't help but feel overwhelmed and a bit disappointed. I know that there isn't hardly any time left but I had truly looked forward to learning to draw the face. It's been quite a redundant semester; same model all year, and the same shell drawing 4 times. And although my drawings have gotten so much better I feel that a change somewhere along the way would have been nice and helpful. The face would have been so nice to understand and I'm sad that we are missing out on that.

In the mean time it's adding muscles and drawing the last view of the shell.