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!