Midterm Post

I can honestly say that this has been a very successful semester, so far, in Life Drawing I. In the beginning I was nervous because I hadn't had a drawing class is over a year and I wasn't certain of how I would do. My sketches started out unproportional, messy, and just barely getting the idea of how the human form really looked. I was cautious to go into any sort of detail because I wasn't confident with how my drawings came together, and my line weights, well, I really only had one: dark. After even just the first week I began to see improvements. My lines were less sketchy and more confident and the proportions were getting closer to a real form/figure. I guess my biggest strength, so far, is allowing myself to fall out of old drawing habits and gaining new ones allowing me to become a better artist.

I have learned that the ribcage is an egg shape with the spine going through the center and that our pelvis is a long 'U' shape with a triangle in the middle. Generally, when doing a gesture drawing you are to start with these three main elements. I have also learned that the body overall creates a zig-zag from head to toe. The skeleton we are building has given me insight as to where each muscle lies and how it shapes our body into that zig-zag. It is so unbelievable how little we know about our OWN bodies!

I am looking forward to our trip to the Mall of America and the Minnesota Institute of Arts in November. I think it will be a great opportunity to see exactly what we've been learning in an environment outside the classroom.

By the end of the semester I would like to improve my gesture drawing skills and my line weights/pressure. Right now the gesture drawings I do are very minimal and my line weights need varying, as well as the pressure I use on my pencils to create those line weights.

Overall, I have impressed myself and I am proud of all that I have accomplished.

View my photos

another reflection

After having class canceled last week, and then being sick Tuesday of this week, this post is going to be tough for me because I don't really have anything to say.

I am a little disappointed that we have only had our male model recently, because I was hoping to have even time with both to learn the difference between the male and female forms. However, all the time we have been spending with the man has allowed him to become much more comfortable being drawn and having the attention on him. Adding the ladder last class period to show the difference between a diagonal/straight line, and the human curves was extremely helpful. It was also beneficial for learning proportion.

Since I missed Tuesday, it was difficult to grasp the egg idea for the rib cage, until Amy came around and showed me how it worked. I am looking forward to learning more muscles because each one we build on our skeletons allows me more insight to what our bodies actually look like.

The one thing I am having a hard time with is, still, the gesture drawings. So much time is spent on them and I feel like it doesn't benefit me in any way. The longer drawings force me to take time and really study the body.

Week 2

In all honesty, I feel as though week two was not as successful as week one, for me. I am a bit frustrated with the amount of gesture drawings we have been doing and I would really enjoy doing some more in depth work. My contour line drawing of the shell, however, I feel was too long to spend on a simple drawing. I need to find a happy medium.

On a good note, I started my skeleton today, and it is SO much harder than I was expecting! I have finished 5 muscles and it has taken me at least 3 hours! Hopefully, with time it will become easier and therefore, less time consuming. I must admit, if I were to spend this much time on a project, I don't mind that it is on the human body. It is SO interesting! I find myself wanting to know more about how our bodies work and why it works that way.

We are truly amazing structures.

Summer project: diptych paintings for my sister's house

"Japanese Cherry Blossoms"

Acrylic paints on canvas 22x30

My favorite project from Graphic Design II.

"Quixotic"

Adobe Illustrator CS3