Life Drawing II - Fin

Well, the end of the semester has reared its head, and Life Drawing II comes to a close. It's been a good semester, and I'm happy with what I'm taking away from the class. I've created some of the best drawings in my life, and strengthened my skills in other areas of my field of study (for more on that, see my previous blog post). Here is a link to my Life Drawing II portfolio.

Life Drawing has greatly helped my other areas of study

I've mentioned more than once that I took Life Drawing I and II mostly to benefit and supplement my learning in my 3D design work. When building a 3D model of a human character, it's vital to have a solid understanding of the human form, as well as the skeletal and muscular systems. In an earlier post, I described how working with the skull helped me while modeling a human head. When I finished the head, I moved on to creating the body. My knowledge of anatomical anatomy again helped me during this endeavor. While creating the basic shape of the body, I was continually thinking about proportions, attachment points, and other things I learned during Life Drawing I and II. After I finished building the base body, I had to go in and add a bit of muscle detail. The things I learned from the Manikin activity in Life Drawing I aided me the most here. Numerous times, I pulled up the pictures of my Manikin and referenced the muscles on them (I have yet to go in and add finer detail to the muscles, but when I do, I will again have my Manikin photos guiding me). When enrolling for Life Drawing I (and especially Life Drawing II), I really hoped that the classes would help me in my other work. At the end of LD2, I can undoubtedly say that they really have. My skills across numerous areas of my field of study have greatly been improved because of both Life Drawing I and II.


Here are a few images of the gladiator that I have been modeling in 3D. I've reposted the head image for reference, and the image on the bottom is the most (but not entirely) completed version that I have to date.

Final Skeleton Drawing

As mentioned earlier, we spent the last few weeks of the semester working on our large skeleton drawings. We then had a show to display our work. For a while, I was a bit worried about how quickly my drawing was coming along, but I was able to get it done. I'm very happy with how it turned out, too.

I struggled a bit after the first day of drawing. My lack of progress was mainly attributed to a short attention span and continual wandering, but I'll just attribute those things to the fact that I couldn't really get a feel for how I was going to go about creating the piece. I wanted so badly to make a drawing that I would be proud to put in the show and that would impress viewers; I was hesitant to just get cracking on it and hope for the best (that was my approach for a couple of the portraits we drew, and I'm not incredibly fond of the way they turned out). This resulted in me not getting much done throughout the first few days.
I had to spend a lot of time during the final week of classes in the Life Drawing room. I went into the room in the evenings and spent a good number of hours in there. Besides the fact that I knew I had to get the drawing done, I actually found that I much preferred this drawing setting. There were never more than a few people in the room, and that made the area much less crowded. I was able to focus more on the skeleton model and my drawing (as well as picking my own music to draw to, which definitely helped get me "in the zone"). I pulled through, and create a piece that I was, indeed, proud to put in the show.


My final skeleton drawing

I think I can say that this is one of, if not the single, most successful drawings I've ever done. To put it simply, it looks good. Everything came together very well, and I'm very happy with the proportions, lines, and shading. One comment made about my drawing was that it has a rather somber, "deathly" feel about it. This was meant as a positive critique (seeing as it is a skeleton.. which is dead), but that made me think of something else. While the lines and shading are quite clean overall, I'm not sure if they portray the sense of life and movement that we have talked about over the course of the semester (as well as in Life Drawing I). I also can't decide if the lack of visual motion and life in the piece is acceptable in the case of a skeleton. Or maybe the contrasting feel of the alive, moving lines on the drawing of dead subject matter would add to its appeal?? Anyway, I hope that those who view my drawing appreciate it, no matter what the reason.

LD2 - Week of November 29th

This week, we began working on our final skeleton drawings. We have a total of 6 classes plus an equal amount of work outside of class to get them done. Unfortunately, I missed Wednesday's class, so I have a bit of making up to do.

Anyway, I've posted below a picture of my progress from the first day of drawing the skeleton. I'm pretty pleased with how it's turning out so far. I'm getting better at sizing up proportion (although I used a ruler when making measurements for the skeleton), and was able to get that done without too much trouble. I think the proportions have turned out well, and I shouldn't have to adjust them much throughout the rest of the process. The biggest issue present in my drawing so far is the placement of some of the bones. I have a continuing problem of drawing lines and forms too vertically, so I have to work on that (you can see that I am in the middle of angling the leg in on my drawing). Also, the arms are too close to the body, so my next step will be to move those out a bit. Other than that, I have no complaints as of now. I'm eager to see how it turns out and to see how much I've been able to absorb throughout my two semesters of Life Drawing!



On a side note, one thing I noticed when measuring out the skeleton was how small the skeleton drawing is turning out to be. With a paper length of almost 5 feet, I imagined the drawing being much larger (almost to scale), but when I went to make the measurements, everything seemed tiny. For example, the skull is less than six inches tall, and that didn't look right at first (I started by sketching in the skull, and after I did, there appeared to be way too much blank paper left below it). I figured that I would just keep sketching out the rest of the skeleton and see what happens. Lo and behold, everything fell into place just fine. Once again, my eyes and brain lied to me about what I think I see!

And yes, my skeleton has a mustache. Why? ...Why not?

Nip/Tuck, beauty and perfection

This semester, my friend Megan introduced me to a show called Nip/Tuck. It.. is.. awesome. The show revolves around two plastic surgeons in Miami. Much of the show deals with the human form (obviously). It's interesting to examine the ideas of beauty and perfection (which I believe go hand-in-hand when discussing the human figure), and the lengths that some people will go to in order to achieve them. I chose to post this picture because its inclusion of the ancient statues demonstrates that this idea of the perfect human form isn't a new phenomenon, and dates back to ancient times.



The whole notion of perfection reminds me of artistic anatomy. When learning how to draw the figure, there is no end-all to drawing perfect people. We learn the "ideal" proportions and measurements, but the fact always remains that everyone is different. At the same time, without the ideals that we learn, the backbone of the teaching process would be lost. It would make it far more difficult to learn artistic anatomy by simply trying to draw what your mind thinks that it sees, with minimal understanding of the form in front of you. I've known quite a few people who show contempt for the concept of beauty and perfection and think we would be better off without it. While some people (such as a number of characters from Nip/Tuck) do themselves more harm than good by obsessing over reaching their idea of beauty and perfection, it is a necessary evil.

Referring back to the Nip/Tuck picture, I love how they placed one of the statues (the Venus de Milo) next to an image of a runway supermodel. The similarities between them are undeniable, and it makes me wonder, are today's supermodels simply an evolution of statues from the past? Do those who look down upon the idea of beauty also consider masterpieces like the Statue of David, The Thinker Statue, or the Venus, to be superficial?

Wait, I'm using what I've learned in this class, for other classes?! Awesome!

I had this epiphany while working on a 3D model of a head, which I was creating for my Digital Characters class.

Modeling the head was quite the process. I began by modeling the nose, then the mouth and chin, eye area, cranium, and ended with the ear. Right when I began the model, I found myself thinking about what I've learned over the course of Life Drawing 1 and 2 (hence the name of this post^). I used this knowledge throughout the whole process, from features like the lips and ear to the underlying structure of the skull. It was pretty cool.

I first took Life Drawing 1 because my main focus in the Multimedia Design program is 3D, and I wanted to help strengthen my abilities in the area of character modeling (I continued on with LD2 for the same reason). The amount of help that my knowledge of artistic anatomy provided with my head model shows that these classes have done for me what I hoped they would, which is awesome. I'm beginning to model the body to which the head will be attached, and I'm sure that Life Drawing will continue to leave its mark on all of the work that I do! I'll post an update on that once I'm closer to completion.

Here is the final model of the head:

LD2 - November 2010

I'm not entirely sure where this whole month has gone.. I think we're being messed with, because I swear Halloween was last week. Anyway, here's a quick recap of Life Drawing 2, November 2010.

As discussed in previous blogs, we began the month with an in-class assignment, consisting of drawing portraits of three classmates. Our critique took place in class on November 15th (details can be found in my last couple blog posts). I didn't attend class on Wednesday due to illness, but I gather that we finished the portrait critiques and critiqued some students' senior projects.

To finish up the semester, we're doing two full skeleton drawings, sized to scale. We spent last Monday (the 22nd) preparing our drawing materials and setting up our easels (we didn't have class Wednesday because of Thanksgiving break. It will be interesting to see how I fare with that. I've never drawn the whole skeleton before, but I'm confident that I have a solid enough understanding of the human body and form to get through it without any major issues. It will help that we can draw the bones with flat planes, rather than drawing them as a cylindrical form. More on this later!

So sorry..

I'm sorry for falling so far behind in these blog posts. I'll try and make up for it in the coming weeks.

My last post included one of three portraits that we did in class (portrait of Evan T.). I've posted the other two below (Evan B. and Megan).

It was quite the experience to do portrait drawings again considering the only one I'd done before was my self-portrait in Life Drawing 1. While drawing someone else wasn't as difficult as drawing myself, it was still far from easy. Outside of class, I rented a couple videos of Robert Hale's artistic anatomy lectures (those that focused on the head), and picked up a number of pointers that I felt were important to remember. For example, using the width of the eye as a way to approximate proportion, and picturing the planar structure of the skull as a ball (representing the cranium) with a soda can coming out of it (the jaw).

I was much more comfortable drawing my last portrait than I was the first, and felt like I had a better understanding of the form. With that being said, my first drawing is oddly the most successful of the three (in terms of similarity to the model, anyway). As I mentioned during the critique, I find that one of the biggest challenges I face is that my eyes continually lie to me about what's in front of me. I could draw a line on my paper and swear that it was where it was supposed to be, but later realize that it was way too straight. I think that I need to work on exaggerating the form more in order to get better results. My final portrait of Megan (pictured) looks much better than what I had before doing a number of corrections (I didn't post that version.. for her sake). As for Evan B.'s portrait.. I just don't know about that one. The lines have the most movement of the three drawings, but that's all I have to say about that. In the critique, a comment was also made about the fact that my portraits look like they were drawn by three different people. This may suggest that I'm still searching for a style of drawing that works for me, and I think I will be able to make big improvements once I do develop that style.


Evan T.


Megan

LD2 Week 7 - Portraits

10/25/10

This week, we began a series of portraits of other students in class. We will make three portraits altogether: a 3/4 frontal view, 3/4 rear view, and one "other" view (3/4 top, bottom, or the like). I began with the 3/4 back view, pictured below.

LD2 Week 6 - Goodbye skulls, hello heads!

10/18/10 and 10/20/10

This week marked the transition from drawing skulls to drawing heads and features. We spent some time practicing drawing the facial features that we learned about in Life Drawing I (some of my work pictured below), and we learned/reviewed about the neck.

Drawing the features wasn't too bad (besides elongating the nose a bit, as seen in the picture). I remembered most of what I learned in LD1, and I don't think I've taken too many steps backward since then. As I recall, I missed the lecture on drawing the mouth and ear. Those may be a bit more challenging than the eyes and nose, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. So far, it's a nice change of pace to be doing something other than skulls. I'm eager to find out how much the knowledge of the "deeper" structure (i.e. the skull) will help me in drawing the head and features.

LD2 Week 5 - Skulls from memory

10/11/10 and 10/13/10

We began this week by drawing skulls from memory. This was my first time drawing without a reference, and I was eager (as well as a bit anxious) to start. After we completed our memory drawings, we looked at a skull and made corrections to our memory drawings. My memory drawing was done in charcoal, and I made corrections using a conte pencil, which are the dark orange marks on the drawing. I am pleased with how it turned out. I was able to remember the basic shapes and planes of the skull, although some of the finer details slipped my mind. A few proportions and angles were a bit off, but not too bad. Overall, I think I have a decent grasp on the skull and pulled off the memory drawing pretty well.




On Wednesday, we drew skulls from new angles. My first drawing is closest to an anterolaterocranial view (3/4 frontal view, seen from the top). The second drawing is from an anterolaterocaudal view (3/4 frontal view, seen from the bottom).
It was harder than I had anticipated to draw the skulls from these angles. I'm becoming more comfortable drawing the skull from the angles that I've done numerous times (anterior, posterior, 3/4), but the change in perspective did a good job of throwing me off. At least they look like skulls; I'm happy about that! Changing the proportions to match the perspective was the most difficult part. My difficulty is best demonstrated through the wide jaw in the drawing from the top view and the wide cranium in the bottom-view drawing. Although challenging, I feel that I'll be able to do a lot better with a bit more practice.

LD2 Week 4 - Skulls and critique 2

This week, we continued working on the five drawings for our second drawing project, and we then critiqued said project. Below are my five drawings. The views are: 10-minute top (Cross-Contour and Long-Axis lines only), 3/4 front (only CC and LA), 3/4 back (CC, LA, as well as value on the side plane), profile (all value) and back (all value).







Overall, I think I'm making good progress. I'm very happy with my value drawings, and I think that they show an obvious improvement from previous drawings. I'm happy with how I used shading and value to create the bone under the cranium in the back drawing, and think it has a certain quality of realism and beauty. I could have exaggerated the shapes of the form to really portray a sense of it, but I'm happy with the subtle shading I used to depict the depth of the planes.
The cross-contour drawings are getting better, but have a bit more room to grow than the value drawings. The front 3/4 skull looks like a helmet (which I gather is a good thing), so that's a plus. I understand the form and plane changes of the whole skull better now than I did in the past, and I think that it's starting to show in the drawings. One key critique I received is to work on the spacing of the contour lines so it doesn't create the checkerboard-style pattern than is apparent on the side plane of the front 3/4 drawing. Once I start to work on that, I think my drawings will develop a new sense of life and movement.

LD2 Week 3 - More skulls! And the back of the cranium

This week, we began our next drawing project. For this one, we are to create 4 drawings of the skull: profile, straight-on back, 3/4 front, and 3/4 back. The focus of these drawings is the back of the cranium (we aren't including the face in our drawings). This is in order to develop a greater appreciation of the entire skull. Most people spend a majority of time drawing the face, overlooking the rest. It's easy to assume that the back of the cranium is just a rounded oval, but there is much more to it than that. Attention to the subtle plane changes and overall movement around it greatly affects the success of a piece overall, making this a vital aspect to understand.

A number of students didn't spend much time in class on Monday because of a design presentation, so I didn't start drawing until Wednesday. I'm close to finishing my first drawing (3/4 back view). Images after completion!

LD2 Week 2 - Skulls and critique

This week, we continued working on our first project (three skull drawings from three angles: 3/4-front, profile, 3/4-back) and then critiqued them on Wednesday.

During our critique, we first split into small groups (4-5 students, with one advanced student to help guide the critique) and discussed our individual drawings. We then, as a class, had a quick look at all of the drawings and made comments on a few of them. I found that beginning as small groups has a number of benefits. It allowed us to get more one-on-one feedback from our peers, as well as a student who already has a solid understanding of artistic anatomy. I believe that this is quite helpful to pick out which areas of our work need the most refinement. The class critique that followed built on that, allowing us to observe successful drawings in order to get a sense of direction.

The first image below is of the three skull drawings I completed for this project. The second image is two of the three drawings I made for the same project that we were assigned in Life Drawing 1 (for some reason, I am unable to find an image of my third drawing from LD1).




When compared with the drawings I made for Life Drawing 1, I am pleased with my drawings for this project. I was initially concerned about how I would cope with the drawings after being out of practice over the summer, but it wasn't nearly as painful as I imagined. The major improvement I notice between the drawings is the proportions. In my LD1 drawings, I elongated the cranium of the skull, making it look too pointed. The craniums in my recent drawings are more rounded and believable. I was a bit more comfortable and successful in adding contour lines to my LD1 drawings, but I'm sure that I will improve in that aspect as the semester progresses.

One of the biggest concerns I'm having this semester (it was also a concern in LD1) is the amount of time it takes me to create a drawing. It's obvious that I spent the most time on the 3/4-front view for the recent skull project, but that doesn't at all imply a lack of effort put towards the profile and 3/4-back views. I am continually measuring, drawing, remeasuring, erasing, redrawing, etc. etc. This really slows me down, but I find it very difficult to draw acceptable lines on my first (or second, or third, or fourth..) attempt. I'm not sure if this means that I need to focus on the movement of my arm while I'm drawing, or if it stems from the way I'm viewing the skull. This is one of the top focuses on my list of things to improve.

The First Week

I spent the first week of Life Drawing 2 getting back into the artistically-anatomical swing of things. During our first meeting, we practiced gesture drawings (see three images below). The first was a 3-minute gesture from a 3/4 front perspective. The second was a 10-minute gesture from a 3/4 back perspective. The last drawing was done in about 45 minutes.





I was a bit rusty when I began to draw, but I'm pleased with my first round of gestures. After starting, it wasn't long before I began having difficulty trying to recall the skull lectures from Life Drawing 1. I struggled to remember the plane angles and other anatomical landmarks that aide the drawing process. I took what information I could remember and worked with that, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was easier for me to get back into drawing than I had anticipated. Although I was having the aforementioned problems, I was able to smoothly regain a solid feel of the charcoal on the paper. I wasn't the greatest at the gesture when I finished Life Drawing 1 and knew that I still had a good amount of practice to do, but I could tell that I had done this before.

On Wednesday, we had a lesson on drawing skulls. One of the key ideas that I took away was about drawing heads from different angles. Beginning with a sphere, the method involved slicing off the left and right sides of the sphere to create the flat planes of the sides of the skull. It then went on to line up the brow, nose, and chin, as well as adding a rectangular shape to the bottom of the sphere for the jaw. I believed that I could use this method to instantly improve my drawings, and was eager to utilize it when we began drawing.

We then started our first assignment of the semester (three long skull drawings; 3/4 front view, profile, and back view). Unfortunately for me, the method sounded a lot more straightforward than it was. I had just as much trouble drawing the shapes that created the foundation of the skull as I did when drawing the skull from scratch. All I could do was keep trying and hope that my three drawings turned out well.

Life Drawing Two

So begins a new semester, and a new Life Drawing class. I will continue this blog with my work and thoughts from Life Drawing II.

I'm still in the Multimedia Design program here at Stout. I'm taking Life Drawing II because my main interest in multimedia is 3-D design. Learning the ways of artistic anatomy will help me create believable, realistic characters. I'm taking a Digital Characters class this semester, and I think that taking the two classes together will help strengthen my abilities in both.

My final 3D project of last semester was a 3D model of an AR15 rifle. This is the barrel and sights, with a bit of the hand guard showing.

I haven't done much worth bragging about over the summer. Most of my time was spent delivering pizzas or golfing (trying to golf, anyway). I took a Wine and Spirits course at the beginning of the summer, and I really enjoyed it. The credits won't further my graduation progress, but I've always wanted to learn about the subject and jumped at the opportunity to take the class. I didn't do much else academically, aside from a few 3D tutorials and exercises. I haven't drawn anything since last semester, either, so I hope that I'm not too rusty this semester. As far as travelling goes, my claim to fame was being part of my friend's wedding down in Texas in May. I'll be going to Spain in January for a wine and food course (the followup course to the one I took this summer), and I'm very much looking forward to that.

I'm the Vice President of the Stout Student SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group in Graphics) Chapter, and a couple of us put together a demo reel for the club that was shown at the Backyard Bash. It can be viewed here.

Well, that's all I have to update for now. I'm looking forward to further developing my drawing skills, and I hope the semester goes well for everyone!

The Last Post: Life Drawing Final

This has been a very interesting and beneficial class. I was eager to begin and learn how to draw the human body, hoping to increase my strengths in drawing as well as other media. Overall, I am happy with the work I've done in Life Drawing and the knowledge that I will take away from the class.

I believe that my work over the course of the semester shows that I was able to make good progress towards achieving the course objectives. I am able to view the human body with an understanding of how it all goes together, from the bones out to the skin. Before Life Drawing, I would view a person as just a couple of shapes and attempt to grasp things like proportion based on rules-of-thumb that I learned back in elementary school. I didn't understand the planes that make up the human body; for example, I would look at a skull as simply an oval rather than viewing the planes of areas like the forehead and noting the change of the direction of the line as I use it to move around the planes and create form. After learning about actual anatomical landmarks and the muscles of the body, I feel that I am much more comfortable and successful at drawing the human form.

I could improve upon the use of line weight and variation in my work. I've become better since I started this class, but I still find that I have a hard time using it correctly. I've learned that there are so many ways to use line, and I have yet to figure out which method I prefer to work with or which I find most successful. This hinders my ability to add good depth to my drawings, so a bit more practice in this area will be very beneficial to me.

The feedback that I received from my midterm portfolio included comments about my gesture drawings and the long poses in class. I needed to work on getting rid of outlines in my gesture drawings and focus more on using the long axis to capture the motion. During the beginning of the class, I would draw what I believed to be the bone structure as the basis for my limb gesture drawings, but they would never end up looking right. I have made efforts to correct that an now try to use the surface as the axis line for the limb. I need to use cross-contour more in my gestures in order to build depth; outlining the shape only flattens it. I haven't improved in this aspect as much as I would like, but I'm hoping to work on it a bit more in Life Drawing II next semester.

I really believe that my more recent drawings show a stronger understanding of artistic anatomy than some of the work in my midterm portfolio. I better understand how the form comes together as a whole and how the surface lines make their way across the planes of the body. I've made an effort to practice better proportions, and I've made progress with that, as well. I still have some room for improvement, but I'm happy with what I've accomplished. My next goal is to be able to get the same drawing results in less time. I like producing good work, but I also like sleep.

Life Drawing I will be very helpful for future classes, my concentration, and my career. I'm enrolled in Life Drawing II next semester, so obviously the things I've learned in LD1 will help me be successful in a higher-level course. My interests in the multimedia concentration are in 3D modeling and animation. As I mentioned in one of my first posts on this blog, a big reason that I took this class was to strengthen my skills in the modeling of 3D characters. If I want to successfully model anatomically correct characters, I have to have a proficient understanding of the human form, and LD1 and LD2 are going to help me immensely in achieving that.

As the semester is coming to an end, so is this Life Drawing I blog. I am glad that I can look back and be happy with what I have accomplished this semester. I had a good time learning, and I'm sure I will be more than pleased with everything I learn next semester. Until then, adieu.

Life Drawing final portfolio

Click here to see my Life Drawing final portfolio. The sets that are part of the final are: Maniken, Long Drawings, Homework and Gesture Drawings

Self Portrait

For our final drawing, we were assigned a self portrait. It was time to test myself on what I'd taken out of Life Drawing I. The following details a bit of my process.

First of all, I have a tendency to set high expectations for myself, and I do my best to follow through with these expectations. I knew this was going to be a strenuous and time-consuming piece, but I was determined to do all that I could to make it as successful as possible. Twelve hours of drawing and two sunrises later, I am very happy with the final product.

I've never studied artistic anatomy before this semester, so I still have quite a bit of room to grow as far as perfecting my skills. I started my self portrait by developing the planes and proportions of the skull. I then moved on to the features of the face: the nose, eyes, ear, and mouth. I finished up with the neck and shoulders.

After going through a draw-erase-draw-erase cycle quite a few times, I was happy with the proportions, but I was left with a number of smudges and line shadows. This made the drawing look very messy right away, and I felt that it would look sloppy and leave the structural planes too visible in the final piece. I decided to start over, but I would use what I already had done to help me.

I darkened the lines of my first piece, traced it onto a sheet of newsprint so I didn't dirty the back of my final paper, and then placed a new sheet of drawing paper over the newsprint. (On a side note, I've heard that famous painters who aren't satisfied with a piece sometimes paint over their entire canvas and start over, so I'll consider this my modified version of that step...) The resulting drawing can be seen below.

This last step made it easier to add the features to my face. The biggest issue I came across during this phase was proportion and placement. I probably drew the equivalent of four portraits with the amount of erasing, resizing, and moving I did. At the end of it all, I was glad that I started on a clean sheet of paper, or my drawing would have been far messier.

As much time and effort as it took to complete my self portrait, I enjoyed the assignment and am incredibly pleased with the results. In my mind, it is without a doubt the best piece I've completed in Life Drawing I, and it demonstrates what I have learned throughout the class. I look forward to further developing my skills in artistic anatomy in Life Drawing II, and hope to complete more work that I am this proud of.

This is my first draft of the drawing. I was left with a number of smudges and line shadows after establishing the main planes and features of the form. I decided to start over, but I darkened the lines of this draft and used it as a reference for my final.

The completed version of my final drawing.

Just a quick one - 5/11/10

I did these drawings in class today, April 8th. I like the way they turned out, so I decided to write a little bit about them.

This gesture drawing (1 minute) is a pretty one. I think that it describes the form and movement of the pose quite well, although more variation in line weight would help emphasize the parts which bear the most weight.

This drawing is a cross-contour that I spent about 2 hours on. While slow in the making, I think that it's a successful piece. I spent most of my time working to get the proportions correct; with a bit of help from my professor, I think they turned out alright. The torso seems a bit short, but I don't find it too drastic. I'm proud of my use of line weight, particularly on the torso area. It does well to show the smoother and sharper curves of the form.

This little eye of mine - 5/4/10

This piece took about 30 minutes to draw. It was a good experience; I haven't drawn eyes before, and I find that I quite enjoy learning the "rules" of artistic anatomy. The little things, like the 3-dimensional planes of the eyelid or the top and bottom of the iris being just overlapped by the lids, make all the difference. It's rather exciting to learn these things and watch yourself develop the ability to draw anatomically correct features. I don't think it's too bad for my first eye drawing, although the nose I drew isn't as spectacular.. I'll be working on that. I'm eager to find out how the rest of the face will go for me as I learn more and when I draw my self-portrait for the final assignment.

Here's my first nose drawing.. I think I need to continue practicing this particular feature.

Shell Drawing and Ink Wash - 4/29/10

This is the fourth shell drawing we've completed over the course of the semester, and the second ink wash. I used charcoal for the drawing and washed over that with black and brown India ink.

Drawing this shell was easier than it was when I did my first shell piece, as I feel that my skills are becoming stronger. I am developing a better understanding of contour lines and how to use them successfully, and I am getting better at correctly utilizing the long axis to create accurate perspective.

I'm still getting used to adding the ink wash, although this piece shows remarkable improvement over my first wash (see the two images below). Adding the dark wash to the bottom made it feel like the shell was actually on a surface, rather than floating in the air. I need more shading towards the "cranial" end of the shell as it sits on the page; there is some shading around the edges of the shell, but this area seems a bit flat overall. At the same time, the shading towards the caudal end of the shell gives it life and really shows it moving back in space.

The biggest issues I had with the ink wash were the lines. I continually felt that the ink lines were too sharp, making them unbelievable, so I would typically blend them a bit and hope for a positive result. Most of the time, this led to me simply blending the line almost completely back into the piece. Then the paper would get too wet, making it harder to even begin with a sharp enough line. I found myself continually becoming increasingly frustrated, and eventually decided to cut my cloth and stick with what I had.

During the class critiques, I took a few steps back and looked at other students' pieces that I thought were the most successful. When taking a few steps back and viewing the piece as a whole, rather than a number of separate lines, I realized that the lines I had used in my wash would have probably worked. I'll have to remember that for next time.

If I'm not mistaken, this was the last time that I will work with Mishelle. She's been a great drawing companion, and I could not have asked for a better model (not one complaint, even during long poses!). Our paths may cross again, but for now, I bid her farewell.

Third shell drawing, first ink wash.

Fourth shell drawing, second ink wash.

Catching Up

I apologize for my absence over the last few weeks.. I guess it took me a bit longer than it should have to get out of "spring break mode". Anyway, I've included here a couple of pieces from class that I think are worthy of sharing and a few comments about each.

Although I drew this contour at the end of last quarter (March 16; it can also be found in my midterm portfolio), I think it's deserving of some attention. This was one of the first cross-contour drawings that I was successfully able to complete on my own. It does a good job of demonstrating the movement of the legs in space as the model's left thigh extends toward the viewer while the right leg remains farther back.

This drawing, my second five-hour shell cross-contour, was the final assignment from first quarter (March 18). I think I'm getting better at using contour lines to create a realistic drawing. My first five-hour shell drawing did a good job of establishing the form of the shell, but there was practically no line weight variation or long axis. This caused the lines to sort of counteract themselves, flattening the drawing. This second drawing has better use of line weight and has a solid long axis, adding depth to the piece through perspective and the use of darker and lighter lines.

These two pieces are some gesture drawings from class. They're both from April 8th; the left was a 2-minute drawing, and the right was a 1-minute drawing.

I chose to include these in this post because I'm happy with the way they turned out. In the left drawing, my favorite part is the leg. While my midterm feedback included comments about staying away from drawing the outline of the figure in gesture drawings, I think that the use of cross-contour and axis does a good job in creating the feeling that I'm going for when drawing gesture. The darker line down the femur and those around the knee are also successful, demonstrating where most of the body weight lies in this pose.

I included the right drawing for similar reasons as the left. I'm steering clear of outlining the form and am doing better at referencing the axis of the surface. The darkening lines toward the bottom half of the drawing also show the distribution of the body weight in this position; the lighter lines of the ribs and spine take the weight off of them, while the darker lines of the leg give the feeling of the weight being applied. This is especially true around the joints (hip, knee and ankle, as well as the entire foot). Overall, I think these are two of my more successful gesture drawings from Life Drawing I so far.

Life Drawing Midterm

It's been an interesting first quarter in Life Drawing I. As I've mentioned before, this is the first drawing class I've had in the last few years, and I'd never attempted figure drawing before. This presented a few challenges, but I think that I'm overcoming them pretty well. Learning about particular parts of the body is helpful to the development of my skills, and I enjoy being able to watch my drawings get better as we learn more. So far, I've learned some interesting stuff; the techniques for developing proper proportion are very beneficial, as I believe proportion is the biggest factor in making a figure drawing look realistic. I had also never realized the angles of the human body; I always assumed that the form was relatively vertical, but offset angles are very prevalent. Besides learning the basic figure, I find the Manikin muscle modeling to be helpful. It enables me to envision the muscles on the model and draw lines that create a believable form.

My abilities are getting stronger, and I think I've made apparent improvement since the beginning of class. I still have a problem with gesture drawings, though; I have a hard time capturing the movement of the figure while keeping the drawing recognizable and not just looking like a jumble of scribbles. Throughout the rest of the semester, I would like to simply continue strengthening my abilities and be able to make good drawings. As far as relating to my other courses, pretty much everything I do in Life Drawing will help me. One of my main interests in design is 3D modeling and animation, and the biggest reason I took this course is so that I will be able to better model realistic 3D human characters. The better I am at visualizing, understanding and being able to drawing the human form, the better I will be at making a 3D model of the human form.

Here is the link to my midterm portfolio:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lifeisanimated/sets/72157623637014724/

Muscle Modeling - Thighs

Continuation of our clay muscle modeling process. This is what I was able to do for the quads, adductors, hamstrings, and glutes.

A few more contours..

Here are two more contour drawings from class. The first one (drawn February 23rd) I feel shows good progress from my first drawings. The more I learn about the human structure, the better and easier my drawings become. Proportion is the key factor in creating a realistic drawing, and my ability to draw body parts the right size is getting stronger. Learning the muscles is also a huge help; the lines drawn as a result of learning them are small details that play another significant role in making a convincing drawing.

I made this next drawing on March 2nd. We began including the muscles in our drawings, and that was quite an interesting process. It was time to see what we've learned from modeling our Manikins.

I'm pleased with how the drawing turned out, but it was quite the process. I understood where the muscles were on my Manikin, but it was harder than it seems to visualize the muscles on the model and draw them in perspective. This, as well as continuing to tackle proportion, led to extensive use of my eraser, but I'm making progress.

Bell Museum visit

After the trip to the Walker Museum, our class visited the Bell Museum of Natural History. We were to choose a specimen and execute a contour drawing; I chose to draw a Caspian Tern.

Walker Museum visit

Last week, our class made a visit to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. I'd never been there before, and it was nice to get out and take a look at all it had to offer. There were many interesting and thought-provoking pieces, but one that I found myself particularly interested in was Jasper Johns' Fool's House. Completed in 1962, the piece is a 72"x36" oil painting on canvas, with objects attached to it.

The broom in the center of the piece is what initially caught my attention; I did a double take when I realized it was a physical object rather than a painted element. I also noticed that there were other objects included in the piece: a towel, stretcher, and cup. Each object was labeled with handwritten text. I understood the meaning behind the piece to be a look into the everyday life of a "fool", likely the artist's reference to himself. Upon first glance, I felt that 'average' was a good way to describe it; the objects were quite basic, and the rest of the canvas was covered in loose, neutral-colored brush strokes, with the text "USE FOOL'S HO" stenciled across the top. I then noticed a stroke towards the bottom of the canvas that was done using the broom as a paint brush. This led me to view the piece in a different way, and question the artist's perception of the objects. I saw them as simple and ordinary items, but Johns might view them as functional tools.

I walked away from Fool's House with the idea of meaning in my head, and how such a simple piece can have such depth to it. As I said, I found it intriguing yet average when I took my first look, but an element as minimal as the broom/brush stroke put me at a different angle.

Week of 2/16 and new Contour Drawing

This week, we began including the ribcage in our focus of the human form (adding to our initial focus on the spinal column). So far, I'm learning new and interesting things, such as the egg shape of the ribcage, where it connects to the rest of the skeleton, its position, etc...

Below is an image of my second contour drawing. I think I've made steps since my first one; while I still got some help from my prof, I erased most of her marks and drew my own.. and it actually resembles a human torso!

Mishelle

This is the shell that serves as a wonderful model for some of my drawing practice. I shall call it "Mishelle".

Mishelle is a Fox Striped Horse Conch. At one point, it was inhabited by an extremely large predatory tropical and subtropical sea snail.

Mishelle is a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Fasciolariidae. While known as a horse conch, Mishelle is not a true conch, as it is not in the genus Strombus.

This species is the largest gastropod in the American waters, and one of the largest univalves in the world.

Source: http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Pleuroploca_gigantea

Muscle modeling - Spinal Erectors

In Life Drawing, we are modeling muscles out of clay. This first part focused on the spinal erectors. Here's what I have so far.

Gesture Drawing

Gesture drawing over the first weeks of class has been interesting. I hadn't taken a drawing class within the last couple years, and it took a while to even get myself going again. I'm also pretty unfamiliar with gesture drawing, so the combination of both led to an interesting transition back into the whole process.

Although I still have a lot of practice left, I feel that I'm getting better at gesture drawing. I'm beginning to understand its significance when creating a piece, and I recognize its value in creating the form from the inside out. My next step is to demonstrate this understanding through my work.

Below is my 10-minute gesture drawing of a shell. I feel that I've made progress since I my first drawings, and I hope to further improve as the weeks move on.

Also, this is my first contour drawing. It looked a bit messier before the prof gave me a few tips and pointers, but I can only get better from here.. right?