Nov 15 - Nov 19

This week in life drawing was pretty short. Class was canceled on Tuesday (or so I was told), I wasn't going to go anyway due to sleep deprivation. This week in general has been one of my busiest and most stressful, so having a break from Life Drawing was really nice.
Thursday was all about learning how to add ink to our shells. We were each told to bring in black ink plus another ink of our choice; I chose a burnt orange color. I was not looking forward to having to add ink to our shells, I mean they took this long to get the contour line drawings down so I was scared to ruin it with ink. And, after looking at past examples of shells, I became nervous that mine wouldn't turn out as beautiful. I was scared to even begin painting on my practice shell (here it is)....

BUT it was actually a ton of fun. My thoughts and concerns have changed completely!  I started out really carefully, only using the minimal amount of ink, but I soon realized that you kind of just have to go for it. I feel like I did okay for just a quick 25 minute paint job, and even the mistakes are beautiful. I am glad we got to do this in class because now I know what needs to be done and how the ink, paper, and brush react to each other. I wasn't too fond of how my burnt orange ink turned into a pink at first, but now I don't think it's so bad after all. I am not looking forward to drawing another shell, but adding the ink to it will be fun!

Nov 8 - Nov 12

This week in Life Drawing was pretty interesting. We only had class once and we spent the majority of the time listening to a lecture about the legs/foot muscles, going over our second shell drawing and doing a long drawing of the feet.
My second shell turned out pretty well, definitely a lot fast than the first. I tried new techniques with this shell (the things I was told to work on with the last one). I used less lines and only 3 lines going on the long axis of the shell. We were told we didn't totally need them, and that if they were added they would have to have enough movement and depth as the other lines. I like having both, so I'm happy with the way my shell turned out in that sense. I also did not have any sort of outline on my shell this time. However, I was still told that I need to work on curving my lines around more to make the edge more implied {I do not know what I'm doing wrong here- so any suggestions or examples would be nice}. After the feed back from both, it will be interesting to see what the next shell turns out to look like.

I've always struggled with drawing the feet so it was nice to get a few hours to JUST focus on them during class. I got two completely different angles with each foot so it was good practice. The first foot was completely straight on, while the second was completely in profile. I struggled a bit with both, especially the foot that was straight on. It was difficult to capture the whole foot while avoiding any distortion. The foreshortening of the toes was also a struggle. Overall, though, I was pretty satisfied. I'm looking forward more drawings of the feet and to an attempt at hands in the future!

 

 We also had assignments to begin adding muscles to feet and rest of the leg.

Nov 1 - Nov 5

I can't believe how fast this week went. The first day of class (tuesday) was spent doing gesture drawings and then a long pose. I'm enjoying seeing the progress I'm making, especially after doing the Flickr account! It's interesting to see where I was and now where I am. My gesture drawings seem to be getting the most improvement, which a relief, but even now they still can be a struggle.

As our long drawings get longer I find myself sort of zoning out near the end; running out of steam you could say. That's something I need to work on. It seems like so long ago, with Drawing II, could I sit for 3 hours and draw and maybe take one break. I do, however, find that as the poses get more difficult I'm able to draw them better. Learning about foreshortening has definitely helped with that struggle. Even from day one we were all dealing with foreshortening, and now it's reassuring to know the "rules" on that.
The horizontal drawing is from Tuesday and the arm has foreshortening (even more so than on the models pose for me today).



The pose we had today (Thursday) was very similar to one that I had already done. The nice part about that was that I could compare and contrast the two, and noticing the difference really helped! It was good to see that my torso was actually the right height this time (not so elongated), and the legs were pretty accurate as well!

Recap on First Half of Semester

This first half of the semester has flown by. I wasn't sure what to expect with this class; Life Drawing seemed a bit out of my league and something that I thought would be a major challenge. The class however, has been totally enlightening and rewarding. My only struggle is with the manikin (see picture on Flickr link). I still struggle with my quick 30 second sketches of the model as well. I can't seem to capture the whole model in that quick amount of time, and what I do capture looks more like  a skeleton at this point. Again, I'm not quite sure what is expected of us for those warm up drawings. I know the whole figure is supposed to be included, but are we supposed to be doing more of an outline, a skeleton, or something in between? All of my selected gesture drawings are quite different from each other. The shell we did was also a good exercise and something quite rewarding to look at! I am not totally looking forward to doing 3 more, but I know from previous drawing classes that drawing the same thing repeatedly truly helps.

My expectations for the rest of the semester aren't far from what we are already doing. I can't believe we are already up to 2 hour drawings with added cross contour lines. I think that having a male model would really change things up, and since we've been drawing the same model for so long, I'm not sure how well I would react to that change skill wise (but, it is something we all would benefit from). As stated before, I'm sure my shell drawings will totally improve, especially after getting the one on one feedback on them. Knowing what I exactly need to change on the shell is really helpful. I know I need to work on my manikin's muscles, especially the legs, so I hope to be on the route to improvement with that.

Click here to see my account on Flickr!!

Oct 18 - Oct 22

Our classes this week seemed pretty intense: catching up on what we miss out on last week, adding more of a structured pelvic bone to our sketches and discussing our shell drawings that we had as homework. We  got a quick look at everyone's shell drawing on Tuesday which was actually really helpful considering this was a first for most, if not all, of us. It was so interesting to see how everyone drew their shells. I didn't see any two drawings that were totally alike- something to think about for next time. I know that I personally need to make more use of the whole page (for this one I seemed to have an awkward 6 inches on the left side of my page), as well as work on eliminating the "outline" look my shell began to have towards the front. I was also told that while my contour lines going the length of the shell were good, they really don't need to be there. Overall I was actually really happy with the way mine turned out, but I know that there are definitely some things I can improve on for next time.

We also did some longer drawings in class this week; about four 25-30 minute drawings in all. I actually enjoy doing these a lot more than I do the quick 30 second drawings. Although I seem to always be at an awkward angle from the model I try to make the best of it. The room just doesn't seem big enough. Finally, yesterday I got a better view to her and it was a nice change. Actually it was almost a challenge! I had been working so much on getting the foreshortening right that when it came down to just drawing her from a normal view I actually struggled. 

Oct 11 - Oct 14

This week we didn't do much in class. Monday we just got together and talked about adding more muscles to the skeleton. It's hard to believe that all of those muscles exist in each and every one of us- all in different forms. We left early and didn't to any in class drawings. Wednesday class was canceled. This week though I've been working on my shell drawing and finishing it up. While it was a daunting task, I feel that I did really well; better than I had planned anyway. My only struggle was to get the shell to fit on the whole page. As of now I have an awkward 6 inches of extra paper on the left hand side. Definitely something to work on. And seeing as we will have to do 3 more of them, I'm sure I'll get the hang of it!
Pictures to come next week!

Oct 4 - Oct 8

This week was pretty uneventful in class until our Thursday session. Tuesday consisted of notes/lecture and an introduction to our homework: a 5-6 hour continued contour line drawing of our shells.

Thursday we drew all session. The first 45 min or so was really rough for me; it seems to take me a while to warm up. We then worked on how we were drawing. By attaching two drawing utensils together and being no closer to the page than an arms-length away we were able to practice drawing with our shoulders. This was totally new to me (something that teachers had talked about, but never pushed), and SO difficult. After we worked on drawing as light as possible. I half thought about not drawing at all and saying that it was just really light, but I knew that wasn't going to fly. I had a bit of trouble drawing really lightly, especially doing so after 30 min. We did some 3 min quick sketches using our new techniques and then some 4 min sketches. We then did two 30 min sketches drawing very lightly and then going back and doing some measuring and quick line drawings over, showing the precise angle of the parts of the body. By this point I was completely warmed up and getting more used to the new drawing technique!