More Snow...

So this week we learned about the upper body. We mainly focused on the shoulders, but also started exploring the arms.

For our gesture drawings, we did the usual ribcage-pelvis-legs, but we added the spines of the shoulder blades. This consisted of two simple lines placed according to however the model was posed. I have to say that I think this is the hardest study so far. The shoulders aren't really that complicated, but it's difficult to recognize and point out the spine of the shoulder blades on the model. It was interesting how Amy could immediately point out where the angles of the shoulder blades were on the models, and I'm sure most of us in class were wondering how in the world she could see that. It's obviously something that comes with a greater knowledge of the human body. I'm sure we'll all get it soon.

Being able to draw from a male model on Friday was really great for the study we did this week. A man's body tends to be more defined than a woman's, so it was a lot easier to recognize the different parts of the shoulder and all of the upper-body muscles.

I've also enjoyed being able to add some little stick arms to my gesture drawings. It's just exciting to see our drawings become more and more complete.

Overall, it was a snowy and hectic week following spring break, but I'm looking forward to spending some more time learning about the shoulders and arms.

Feetsies

I'm writing this post while relaxing on a white, sandy beach on an island in the Maldives.

Just kidding...

My spring break has been hijacked by Senior Show, so I don't plan on returning to class with a golden tan.

But anyway...

This week's study was definitely the hardest so far, but the techniques Amy taught us were incredibly helpful. We started out with shorter drawings where the foot was represented by simple, rectilinear shapes. This allowed us to recognize the different planes of the feet, and really helped to get the right perspective. It ended up being a little more difficult to distinguish the top plane from the side plane, but we learned how to use the ankle as a sort of landmark to separate the two planes. 

Everyone's feet are different, so that's one thing that not only makes them fun to draw, but more difficult as well. The toes are by far the hardest part. Our goal is to avoid "sausage toes", and to think about toes as having different planes as well. I think it's important to really study the bones in the toes to see how they relate to each other. 

By Friday, we were ready to do a long pose and execute what we've learned thus far about drawing feet. I think the pose was about an hour, and I spent most of the hour getting the perspective to look right. I didn't have enough to time to draw all five toes, but I think at this point, it's more important to make really close observations rather than trying to end up with a complete drawing.

Mid-Term Post

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23462614@N05/

It's incredible how much I've learned in this class in just the first half of the semester. Since I haven't had a drawing class since Drawing 2 my freshman year, I was a little nervous about getting back in touch with my newsprint and charcoal. Being able to do nothing but gesture drawings the first week of class was great because it allowed us to become comfortable with drawing again without any pressure to perform. I've never been very good at drawing figures, so I wasn't sure how I would do with life drawing. Amy has made it much easier though with her lectures and having us focus on only one part of the body at a time. We're really given a lot of time to understand each part of the body and how it relates to the rest of the body, so I've never really felt like I was being rushed to learn everything.

I see a little bit of improvement with my drawings every week, but I'm really finding the most amount of progress to be in my understanding of the human body. Before taking this class I knew very little about the muscles in the body, but with the clay manikens and lectures, I now feel knowledgeable enough to be able to draw figures more accurately. When I think about it, it seems like everything I've learned in this class so far has all been new to me. I'd never heard the egg technique for drawing the rib cage, and I'd never been taught to draw the mid-line of the body first. I actually still find myself having to think about the rib cage, but I feel as if I'm almost to the point of immediately knowing how it's positioned. I've also noticed that my gesture drawings have become a lot less sketchy. You can see the difference between Gesture 1 and Gesture 5. I think I've slowly been becoming more confident in my mark-making.

I have really enjoyed being able to spend the whole first half of the semester on just learning and slowly developing a complete figure drawing. We just finished learning about the thigh, so I assume we will soon be learning about the knees, lower leg, and the arms. I'm excited about being able to draw a complete human figure, but I'm also a little bit nervous because it will be the time when we're really expected to produce our best work. At this point, I'm definitely not comfortable enough to confidently draw a complete figure, but we still have another half of a semester to go so there's still a ton of stuff to learn!

Snow

It already feels like forever ago that we got a foot of snow and I never made it out of the parking lot to go to class. So this was kind of a short week for drawing, but we learned a lot about hamstrings and thighs. I actually found it quite difficult to build the hamstrings on my mannequin, and I'll probably end up re-doing them after a closer study of the pictures in the book.

It's crazy to think that there's only two more weeks until spring break, which means it's almost midterm! We have to put together a portfolio of some of our best drawings so far, as well as take pictures of our mannequins. I'll have to start looking through the gesture drawings we've done so far, but it will be interesting to see the progress from a month ago. I actually feel like things are starting to get tougher as add more and more elements to our drawings. I've never been that great at drawing figures, so life drawing doesn't come as naturally for me as it does some of the other students. It's really interesting to see how we each have our own unique style when it comes to drawing. No two drawings are ever the same.

I'm not exactly sure what we're focusing on for this upcoming week, but I'm looking forward to having a more organized week, and not missing any classes!

The Pelvis

The area of focus for this week was the pelvis. It's a little bit more difficult than the rib cage to recognize on the model, but it's been awesome to see our drawings progress into figures that look more like humans. When the model does a more intricate pose, it's definitely easier to imagine what position the egg would be in than what position the pelvis is in. Although both the rib cage and the pelvis are vertically symmetrical, the pelvis looks much different in the posterior view from the anterior view, so that makes it more difficult to draw as well. Now that we're adding more components to our drawings, some of the poses that were easy to draw a week ago are now becoming a lot harder to draw. You really have to think about whether you're looking at the anterior view or the posterior view of the pelvis, and whether the left hip is higher or the right hip is higher so the perspective doesn't look distorted. Now that we've added another element to our drawings, we have to think about how both elements relate to each other. We're looking deeper into proportions and how the rib cage relates to the pelvis in different poses. I've struggled a little bit with getting the pelvis to be the same width as the rib cage, but I'm starting to become more consistent in my drawings. I really enjoyed doing the longer poses this week with the pelvis added in because we're able to add in the different muscles of the abdomen, so it just makes the figure more interesting and fun to draw. I've been trying to remember to exaggerate the curves and lines of the body so that my drawings can be more dynamic, but I've been having trouble with drawing the rib cage tilted in one direction and the pelvis tilted in another. Like Amy said, it has to be kind of like a zig zag, which is what I'm going to keep in mind throughout this next week of drawing. I'm not really sure what we'll be focusing on for this upcoming week, but I'm sure it will be great! I love this class so far!

The Egg

We focused mainly on the rib cage this week, and it was really awesome to be able to just study one part of the body for an entire week. The egg technique was really great for drawing the rib cage, but I felt like I kept having to remind myself what the shape of an egg was because mine kept getting too long or too skinny. I'm hoping after much more repetition of drawing the egg shape, my hand will just be trained to do it correctly every time.

We did a little bit of cross contouring this week, and it's slowly becoming easier to recognize the different planes on the body and to draw the contour lines so that it looks like the figure has volume. I still struggle with cross contour lines along the shoulder blades and other areas where there's many different little planes.
I don't feel like I can recognize some of the muscles on the back as quickly as some other people can, but I'll keep studying my mannequin so that I can find them more easily on the model. I'm hoping to do more long poses this upcoming week, which are so great because it makes for some great observations and allows me to constantly modify and improve my drawing.

The muscle building has gotten easier a lot easier this week, probably because I'm more used to how the clay functions and how our mannequins relate to the ones in the books. It's fun to have some knowledge of the different muscles in our body, especially when you have a personal trainer for a mother. As soon as I started working on the muscles for this weekend, she pulled out a bunch of her own books on muscles for me to reference.

I'm excited to begin learning about the pelvis and incorporating it into our drawings. I think my rib cages still need some work, so I'm hoping I can get those up to par by the end of this week.

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.