Mid-Term Reflection

It's midway through the semester already, almost feels like we just started. Anyways, this semester has been very interesting. Like having to stare at a live nude model, which was very awkward for me, but with time it didn't bother me anymore. The manikins were interest to do. (So interesting I'll insert a picture of it right below here)

Yeah, working on this little guys was fun, but the only thing I didn't like about it was that it was very awkward to carry back and forth to class.  Carrying a little half skeleton man around people sort of notice.  Overall, it's been fun.  The drawing is another thing that was interesting, too.  Have to work with a live model (it would have been awkward if it was a dead model) made me understand the human body on how it moves, how the muscles change as they move, and all the little shadows you don't notice unless you are looking for them.  The last thing we did for the semester was to make a mid-term portfolio on Flickr.  So you guys can take a look when you get a chance. 

For the second half of the semester, I expect myself to improve in my ability to draw the human form.  Also, to finish up my manikin, it would nice to see it completed.

Till next time....

Shell Drawing Contour Homework

Okay everybody; here is my first shell contour homework assignment drawing.  (That was a mouth full)  Anyways, we were assigned this assignment a couple of weeks ago, and the assignment was to draw a contour drawing for 5-6 hours, in which to me is a long butt time.  We had our choice of drawing median, which I used charcoal pencil, on 30”x 22” Stonehenge paper.  Drawing this shell was easy to do.  I did it one line at a time, until I got the whole shape of the shell.  After I got the basic shape of the shell, I started to put more detail into it.  While I was drawing it I was trying to keep in mind of atmosphere perspective.  Which is the farther an object is, the hazier it looks because of the atmosphere itself.  It shouldn’t matter with this small of an object, but for dramatic affect I did.  In reality, it was to give it a sense of depth.  I did this by using a harder charcoal pencil as I was going towards the back of the shell. 

After we got the drawings done we did a critique on them.  We got into groups of 3 to 4 and took five minutes for each drawing.  Mentioning the positives and negatives of each drawing.  The positives of my was that it showed volume well and the contour of shell itself.  Negative was that it was not taking the full space of the paper.  Another one was that it seems to be too dark. 

Till next time…

Reflective of the week of September 27th

All right!!!  This week in life drawing has been somewhat… tiring.  To begin, I had a cold for most of the week and couldn’t really concentrate in class on Tuesday.  In which, we had to bring our manikin with the 9, wait 10, back muscles on it.  We were assigned it last week and had to do it over the weekend, but I didn’t get all the muscles written down before I left class on Thursday.  In result, I was missing one muscle.  So after being told the basic requirements for how the muscle was suppose to be done, I went back and redid the whole thing, with the missing muscle included.  But before class was done on Tuesday we did some 15 sec. gesture drawings, which we had to get the basic long axis line, then to 30 sec. drawings, same as the 15 sec. ones, but with a little more detail, like rib cage, limbs, etc.  Before class was done, we did a 30 min. contour drawing, in which, I redone three times and still didn’t get a good one out of it.  So like I said at the beginning  of this post, I wasn’t feeling a 100%.   But Thursday was a different story.

Thursday was a pretty good day for me.  I was able to concentrate much better, and it showed.  I should have some pictures in this post, but I don’t have my drawing pad with me at the moment.  So I might add them in later, or not.  Seriously, though, it was a good day.  First, we talked about the rib cage and its features.  Then we used what we discussed about the rib cage, like using an egg shape to represent the rib cage, into some 30 seconds drawings.  Going with what we did in the 30 seconds drawings, we went to 1 minute drawings, and then to 2 minutes drawings.  By the end of class, we did a 25 minute contour drawing, in which, we used the egg rib cage technique to get the basic shape of the torso, and also used the long line axis, too.  I still seemed to have trouble slowing down when doing contour.  Still, I need to improve on a few things (more like everything), but that is life. 

Till next time…