I can't believe the semester has already come to an end. The time has flown, but I feel as though I have learned a year's worth of information from this class. When drawing a person I never really knew how to start. Should I begin with the head? What about the body? Do I put detail in the face first? Or should I focus on the muscles? Most of the time, I would get frustrated and end up merely drawing the face itself because it's something I have done before. Now that I have completed this course, I am confident in drawing the entire form, starting with the spine, ribcage, and pelvis. When drawing the spine, I have great fluidity in my lines. The pelvis, however, is my weak point. I have a rough time "seeing" the pelvis through the outer shell of our bodies. On our final drawing day, I had a side profile view of the model and I was completely thrown off trying to figure out what the pelvis looks like at that angle. After the spine, ribcage, and pelvis have been completed, I move on to the larger appendages: arms, legs, and head. I try not to draw them in outline, but rather and quick, straight lines, similar to the bones inside. Last, I focus on the hands, feet, and details.
It is amazing how far my drawings have come since the first day. My lines were inconsistent, messy, and overwhelming on the page. I am now more confident in my line making and I do my best to keep things clean. I am still struggling with the line weights, but I have switched my medium, starting with a 5H pencil, before adding the charcoal. I wish I would have tried this sooner in the semester so that I didn't rip holes in the paper trying to erase the original lines I began with.
As I mentioned earlier, the face is something that I have drawn before, and it was definitely the most interesting part of the class for me. Before this course, I could draw a face, just not geometrically. Now I know how to structure it without relying on shading to make it look realistic.
My least favorite part of the class, this semester, was the skeletons. Trying to figure out what muscle goes where, which way it curves, if it has a belly or if it's flatter, is it under or over the other muscle that is already there... the questions are too many to count. In the future, it would benefit students to have more in-class time to work on them as well as a visual of a skeleton with the completed muscles already on it. This way, comparing could be done and students could help each other. It would also be beneficial if a skeleton was given to pairs of students instead of individuals. Two heads are better than one, right? Your partner might see something that you don't or you might better understand with their perspective.
I also disliked the shell drawings. I was never able to spend the actual alloted time on these large scale drawings because I didn't have the time with all my other classes. This last shell drawing was the worst because we were asked to use a medium that we haven't tried before, so it has been stressful figuring it out, to say the least.
Overall, the semester has been successful for me and I am walking away with a better knowledge of my body.
"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom." - Aristotle
No comments:
Post a Comment