Reflection

I've always enjoyed the first few weeks of a studio class because it's all about learning the processes and techniques, while the rest of the semester is devoted to executing what you've learned. We focused on the spine and all of its parts, as well as how it relates to the rest of the human body. Lecture is something that you don't normally expect to receive in a drawing class, but I can't even express how helpful it is already to have Amy take the time to teach us about the body. It's really impressive how much she knows and it makes me think about my mom, who's a personal trainer, and how much even she could benefit from a class like this.

I thought it was really good for Amy to have us draw nothing but the middle line of the body when doing gesture drawings this week. Although it was a bit more difficult to take a whole ten minutes to draw one line, it really got me to take a closer look and have more thoughtful observations. Before learning about the four curves of the spine, I wouldn't have known that the second curve is always a convex curve, no matter what position the body is in. This bit of information helped a lot with the gesture drawings for this week.

I really enjoyed doing the cross contour drawings this week as well. I remember my drawing one professor having us do one or two cross contour exercises, but it was never explained as in depth as how Amy teaches it. So I'm pretty new to drawing cross contours and it's a little bit challenging for me. You really have to see the surface of the body as different planes, but Amy has some really great techniques for making it easier to recognize the different planes.

We got our clay mannequins this week too, which is exciting! After I finish my post I'm going to begin building the muscles assigned for Monday. I'm anxious to see how easy or difficult the muscle building will be. I got multi-colored clay with my mannequin, so he'll have a sort of tie-dye aesthetic. I heard some people in class talk about naming their mannequins, so I think I'll call mine Francois from now on. He's right brain dominant, so that explains why he hangs out in a drawing class.