Life Drawing I: Week Fourteen: Final Portfolio

PHOTOBUCKET ALBUM:
Term 2

FINAL REFLECTION
Wow, I just cant believe the semester is done already! It absolutely flew by! I learned a ton this semester in Lifedrawing. Coming into life drawing Im sure a lot of us thought, yea Im not the greatest at drawing the human figure, but I can do it fairly successfully. I being one of them, definitely got a bit of a shock when I was set in front of a nude model and asked to draw her/him. I learned very quickly the areas that I needed to improve upon and what I was doing incorrectly with my human form.

On the last day of class we had a model come in and we were able to two final long drawings. I was really excited to be able to finally put all my knowledge together and draw the entire human form without questioning areas of the body. I unfortunately found out very quickly that I was very out of practice with the entirety of the body. Since we had been concentrating more recently on the hands, feet, and facial features, along with missing a couple days of class, we really hadnt done a whole lot of model drawing. This really showed me that especially with the human body, practice and constant drawing is essential for me to be able to retain and successfully draw various portions of the body.

Overall I really enjoyed doing the head and facial features especially the eyes! I have always attempted to draw the human eyes, but they just never seemed to turn out right or look real. By listening to Amy's lectures and by closely analyzing the more specific areas and planes of the eyes I feel that I am much more able to draw a realistic human eye.

As far as my final shell goes, I was actually surprised with how happy I am with it. Throughout the semester my contour drawings seem to go on a roller coaster ride, one being good and the next being super flat. I feel that with this last shell drawing I was able to capture a lot of angles and pretty successfully got it to look both 3D and organic. With my last large shell drawing the biggest thing that I felt I needed to work on was making my shell look organic. By paying attention to closer details and by drawing more slowly I was able to capture more of my shells bumps, and grooves. I was nervous about going in with the wash on my shell. I have never worked with an ink wash before, but overall for my first time I am pretty happy with how it turned out!

Life Drawing I: Week Thirteen: Reflection

MOUTH, EARS, HAIR, PARTNER DRAWINGS, AND HANDS
Today Amy went over the mouth, ears, and hair during lecture. Over Thanksgiving we were assigned to draw 5 eyes and 5 noses. Overall I thought that my drawings of those went pretty well.

After the lecture Amy asked us to partner up so that we could draw each others head and facial features. I was a bit nervous going into it but for my first portrait drawing I felt that it went fairly well. My biggest question was that I didn't really know where to start. After the 1/2 hour was up, I felt that my drawing was alright, but I felt like it didnt really look a whole lot like my partner.

As for the second half of the week, Amy had originally told us that we would be drawing off of on of our models. She decided to change her plans and have us partner up again so we were able to get a closer look at what we would be drawing. Our concentration for the day was mainly hands, with an ear or some other part of the head late in the period if we wished. I was able to get a hand, some fingers, and I attempted to tackle an ear as well.

With my first hand the biggest problem that I came across was where I should start. I decided to start with a ball shape and branch off some flanges from there. It worked alright. I seemed to have a lot of difficulty with this hand I think because there was a lot of fore-shortening of the fingers. Due to this my fingers look a bit like hot dogs!

My second hand I was much more successful! I decided to start with the pinkie finger and work my way around the hand that way. I feel that this hand turned out much better, and I was able to pay attention to smaller details which really helped!

For my last drawing I decided I wanted to tackle an ear. I felt that my ear's proportions and overall shape turned out pretty nicely. However, I also had a hard time making the ear look 3D and differentiating from the parts of the ear that were coming forward from the ones that were going back in space. I asked Amy to help me out and she gave me some great pointers on where to exaggerate planes a bit to give the ear a more 3D effect!

Life Drawing I: Week Twelve: Reflection

No Class Held This Week.

Life Drawing I: Week Eleven: Reflection

FIRST LARGE SHELL CRITIQUE, EYES, AND NOSES
For this blog entry Amy wanted us to touch upon two questions and our critiques. The first question she wanted us to address was how this drawing compared to our last shell drawing. I feel that this shell drawing from my last one has improved. On my last shell drawing I attempted this view multiple times and just couldn't seen to get it to work. Coming into this drawing I knew that I wanted to draw my shell from this view showing the various planes and steps as my shell twisted into form. Due to the amount of time Amy gave us for these larger shells, I was really able to slow down and take my time as I figured out how my shell moved and curved around.

The second question Amy wanted us to address was how we felt about going from our newsprint sketch books to such a large piece of paper. It was a bit difficult for me to jump to such a large drawing. For my drawing I decided to work on a table looking down on my drawing...lets just say this was a mistake on my part. Going into the drawing I felt I was able to get the overall shape much more easily, but I feel some of my contour lines lost their direction working so big. After seeing my shell up on a wall, straight on instead of on a table, I can really see where I should have put a lot more lines. I also feel that my shell lost a lot of its organic feel. To me my shell, looks 3D, but it would have been much more beneficial to me to work on a wall rather then a table top.

Overall my critiques went pretty well. I was able to tell the people that I worked with what I felt I needed to improve upon and we went from there. My group members thought I used up the page nicely, and that my overall shape was really nicely done. They did agree that my shell wasn't as organic as is could have been and began to look a little to precisely done. For our next shell my main goal is to create a shell with a lot more organic form and to add more contour lines to better define the shells feel.

After our critiques were done Amy went over the eyes and nose. Overall the lecture went pretty well I and believe I have a pretty good understanding of the basic shapes of these facials features. Amy assigned us 5 eyes and nose drawings for the weekend so we'll see how they go!

Life Drawing I: Week Ten: Reflection

BODIES EXHIBIT, MIA, SKULLS
This week was our field trip to the Bodies Exhibit and the Minneapolis Institute of Art! Coming into last week I was excited about the field trip to the Bodies exhibit but didn't really know what it was about. Then, after telling one of my professors that I was heading there for a field trip, their eyes kind of widened, and asked me if I knew what exactly what it was. After learning that the bodies I would be seeing were real human bodies, I was even more excited for the exhibit!!

After walking through the nine exhibit rooms I decided my two favorite were the circulatory room, and the fetal room. Walking into the circulatory room just blew my mind thinking that what I was looking at is actually in my body. All through science/biology classes we learn about how complex the human body is, but being able to really see it, in 3D, right in front of my face, instead of from a book, really put everything into perspective. The 3D circulatory system's beauty and complexity just blew me away. It looked like I could put my hand on it and crush it into a million pieces.

The fetal room also really grabbed my attention. One of the things that grabbed my attention the most was how they had the fetus' in 2 week stages beginning from conception on. It was amazing to be able to see the growth patterns in just 14 day increments. As well as how quickly the body is formed and you can tell it is a baby. It was also interesting to be able to see three babies that would have been born with disabilities.

After the Bodies Exhibit we headed off to the MIA. Not that I wasn't excited for it, but I have already been there 3 times this semester, so I wasn't as pumped as for the Bodies. One thing that I did take advantage of this time around was the Louvre Exhibit. Unfortunately I was a bit disappointed with it. I guess I was just expecting to know more of the pieces/artists that were shown. It was nice to be able to see artwork from the Louvre don't get me wrong, but I guess I was just expecting more. Ill just have to travel to Paris someday to see it on my own!!

On to class. Thursday we tackled the skulls. Amy let us have the period to draw the side and 3/4 front view on our own before she lectured. My skulls went alright. I did the side drawing first. After some adjusting I was pretty happy with how it turn out, although it was a bit flat. Moving onto the 3/4 view was a bit difficult. I wasn't sure where to start, but once I got going it worked out alright. I'm hoping Amy gives us some proportion tips in her lecture next time!

Life Drawing I: Week Nine: Reflection

SHELL AND FEET
So over the weekend we were assigned a contour drawing with our new and improved shells! I was hoping that my contour drawing would go smoothly with no major problems. Well I was wrong. My shell looks kind of like a smoothed out conch shell, so I decided initially to start with the end with all of the arms closest to me and work my way down the shell. I figured the easiest way to get started would be to sketch the basic form of the shell and proceed from there.

Lets just say for some reason I just couldn't even seem to get a basic form down. I tried and erased about 5 different shells before I decided to completely switch my point of view. I ended up drawing my shell from a pretty basic point of view that allowed me to do just the overall shape of the shell without having to worry about the troublesome arms that come off of it. I was a bit more successful with my contour lines and feel that overall, my shell turn out alright. It definitely doesn't pop as much as I would have liked it to, but at least its not completely flat!

We also found out at the end of class that we are to buy sheets of paper that are 38"x50" for our next three shell contour drawings!! I'm kind of excited to really tackle my shell on a much larger scale and plan to take it a few hours at a time so that I can do a good job on it. Amy showed us what we will eventually be doing with our shells and the images that she showed us in class were really descriptive and fun to look at.

We also had lecture on the foot this week. I was absent from class on Tuesday due to illness so I wasnt in class for the actual lecture. I was able to take down notes from the sheet on the wall as well as from a classmate so I at least got some out of the lecture notes. My very first drawing of the foot was absolutely horrible!! I think Amy noticed pretty quickly that I needed to be filled in on a couple of proportion things so she sat down and showed me a few things to take into consideration. After she showed me just a could of planer shapes of the foot my next few drawings were much more successful!

Life Drawing I: Week Eight: Reflection

MANIKINS, MUSCLES, AND CONTOURS

So after presenting our mid-term portfolios Amy decided we all needed some significant work on our manikin’s legs. So the beginning of this week was spent tearing apart our muscles that we had put on our manikins and re-vamping our quads. At first when Amy told us we would be ripping the muscles off I was a bit disappointed. Since my manikin isn’t my favorite thing to do I was kind of dreading the fact that we had to do the same part over again.

After Amy went over a few things in class with the overhead projector and pointed out the problems a lot of us were having, I was able to have a much better grasp on my muscles and what needed to be improved. Once again I had made my muscles much too thin and needed to improve upon the volume of more then one of them. From Amy pointing out specific things that we should be looking for re-doing my muscles was a ton easier and much more enjoyable as well!

This week we also did a couple of longer poses and a contour drawing. For some reason the whole contour drawing thing is still something that I need to work on. I’ve noticed that one week my contour drawing will go really well, and the next week my drawing will turn out super flat. Hopefully this begins to go better.

At the end of the week we were also given new shells. Our shells are a ton bigger then our last ones and definitely a lot more interesting!! We were assigned a contour drawing for the weekend so hopefully I can get my contour drawings down pat.