Life Drawing: Week 15

 Hi welcome to my blog. Throughout this semester course of life drawing it has introduced me to a different approach drawing as well as a greater understanding of the human body. In traditional drawing courses that I have taken it teaches us to draw what we see rather than what we really know. In life drawing we learn to develop an understanding of the body to draw what we know rather than what we see.  It also teaches that by breaking objects down to different parts and planes we can create each component of the human body.  When first being introduced to this class I felt confident that I was able to learn the gestural drawing style. It was a particular style I was not very used to, as I am more a neat freak rather than a sketching drawer. I feel that from this class it has also contributed to my drawings outside of class, such as my industrial design courses. It allowed me to just express all my ideas on a page without the fear of having a messy drawing. It some cases this sketchiness has an attractive feel that I like.  Aside from drawings in class, we were given the opportunity to learn more about the human body through the use of our manikins. We were given assignments weekly to add muscles on the skeletal surface of the manikin. It was an interesting experience to learn from adding muscles onto the manikin. It allowed me to gain a greater understanding of how the muscles are positioned, layered, and grouped. It has contributed greatly to our drawings when by allowing us to drawing what we know sometimes when we are not able to see certain parts to the model. Overall, I struggled most with learning how the muscles were grouped together. I felt sometimes the course might have moved a little too quickly with little explanation. In addition I had difficulties with our with our 30 second drawings. I felt it was difficult to apply all the components of the body within that little time frame, although it contributes to making me a better drawer.  As for my strengths I felt I had a pretty good understanding of gesture drawing. As an art student I feel it is important to learn this style early on as it can be applied to other courses to represent your ideas quickly. From this course I feel my ability to drawing quickly to represent an idea has improves tremendously. So thank you life drawing and may everyone have a safe summer.

view my final 10 short drawings here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/59964810@N07/sets/72157626577803451/

view my final 10 long drawings here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/59964810@N07/sets/72157626577782789/

Sorry there will not be any manikin pictures posted on my flickr account as I am having trouble getting into getting into it.

Life Drawing: Week 14

Hello, welcome to my 14th week posting. This week has been a stressful week with my grandmother's funeral going on I am unable to get any work done. With her burial going on tomorrow I will not be able to come to class to get my manikin checked. In class we continued with our head drawings of the eyes, nose, lips, and ears. I feel I need to spend a bit more time focusing on the skull of the head so I can get a better understanding of how all the parts that make up the face fits within the head. As the semester is getting closer to an end I feel things in this class are getting so rushed with little time to explain what we maybe drawing. As a final for our class we were given the assignment to do a self portrait as well as putting together a portfolio.

This image is a drawing of the male model's head we started last Friday and continued with this past week. I felt it was a challenge getting used to this unique style of drawing rather than the typical style we have used in our drawing 1 and 2 classes. While I was drawing I had trouble getting the curvature of the facial structures. In addition I had trouble creating a difference in line weights, but then I felt I overcame this problem when I switched from a pencil to a charcoal pencil to create a great depth in the lines. At the end of the course I hope to gain a better understanding of how to draw the hair for the eye brows and on the head. Another aspect I would like to learn more about are the areas around the eyes and underneath the jaw.

Life Drawing: Week 13

Hello everyone, welcome to my 13th week posting. As always this week has been pretty hectic with all the assignments piling up and trying make to time to apply to summer jobs. Lately I have been having a great lack in motivation to finish the semester strong. I do not know what it is, but I have been focusing a lot of my attention towards all the activities I have got planned for the summer. My car especially is going to be my largest summer project with rust starting to build up, dents, and scratches that needs repair. In addition I need to start training for volleyball tournaments this summer. I feel we have a great chance of getting placed within the top three. Anyways, as of right now I have got to focus on other priorities that matter most in my future. In life drawing we started working more with the facial features of the eyes, nose, lips, and ears. Out of all the features I feel the nose is the most challenging to get just right proportionately and three-dimensionally. Personally I feel if the nose is drawn incorrectly and moved slightly in any direction just a little bit from the proper area it ruins the person's entire face. This is probably the case because I feel the nose is the most focal point due to its location on the center of the face. Another feature aside from the nose that I find also difficult to draw are the eyes. Throughout my experience drawing people I have always had a difficult time drawing the eyes especially when it came to making them appear three-dimensional. I guess a problem that a lot of people and I share are making the outlines of the eyes the same thickness. By doing this I feel it makes the eyes appear more like a cartoons rather than an actual person's eyes.

 In this image was a drawing of one of our classmates I partnered with to draw each others nose. It was interesting just to observe all the details and different structures that go within the construction of a nose. Overall, I was not too satisfied with my drawing perhaps cause it still appeared a bit flat to me. I had a difficult time getting all the shadows in the right area and right shade of darkness. Perhaps, sometime this summer I can spend some of time working with drawing faces to get more experience drawing the nose.

This drawing of my partner's eye was quite interesting to see all the planes that make it up. I think I should try using a charcoal pencil next time so I can really get the dark areas darker, such as the upper lid of the eye where the lashes start to extend from. Again l was not satisfied with the outcome of this drawing. I think I just need to play around with changing the thicknesses of my line quality and the highlights of the eye.

Life Drawing: Week 12

Hello everyone, welcome to my 12th week posting. Amazingly this week went by pretty quick, probably due to having no classes on Friday. In life drawing we continued to work on the hands and started on the areas of the skull. As the class progresses I feel that we are being introduced to too many different parts that I am unable to understand any of the parts well. At this point I am just looking forward to an end to the class with a good grade. Anyways, this week  I thought it was interesting how Amy allowed us to start drawing the skull without any sort of instructions on how the skull should be drawn. I guess perhaps it was just an exercise to see what we have learned and know about the subject. Overall, when Amy came around to check my skull drawing I was able to get some of the parts to the skull correct, however there were some things I needed some clarification on. 

This is an image of my hand drawing of the female model done on Wednesday. This was my second attempt to draw the hands. In my first drawing I had the difficult time preventing the fingers from looking like sausages as well as maintaining a three-dimensional appearance. In this drawing it was tremendously better than the first. The only trouble I had was with drawing the pinky finger. It was positioned awkwardly with the tip of the finger curving inwards. Overall, the drawing turned out okay. I could have worked a lot more with the atmospheric perspective.

In this image it is a drawing of one of the skulls we did in class. It was interesting to observe how all the forms on the skull has some sort of dimensional quality. After getting some help from Amy I guess I was able to see this a little bit more. Overall, the drawing turned out pretty good. I am just hoping to get a better understanding of the skull when Amy explains it next class.

Life Drawing: Week 11

Hello everyone, welcome to my 11th week posting. This week was a pretty rough week for me physically and emotionally. Aside from all the homework that has piling up, my family and I have been dealing with the death of my grandmother 2 days ago. It has just been 9 months ago that my grandfather passed away and now my mother is having to deal with the fact that she will never see both her parents. Although I was not as close to them, I can only imagine how hard it must be for my mother. Now after spending several thousand dollars on my grandfather's funeral, my family is struggling to find to money to pay for my grandmother's funeral. So I guess I just had to get that out of the way. Anyways, as far as life drawing goes we are getting closer to the end of our semester, which I am definitely looking forward to. We have also started focusing on the regions of the hand and arms, which is quite similar to the feet. My understandings stands to same as last week, still clueless as ever about what I am doing. I feel as if I have been lacking a lot on my drawing abilities in life drawing as well as other art classes. At this point I really need to find motivation to push me further in everything that I am doing. Sometimes I forget why I continue to work hard in college and how much it will really benefit me. As for the manikin, we have been receiving quite a bit of assignments. Thankfully they are some of the last manikin assignments we will be receiving. So far I have not been keeping up with the manikin as much as I would like to, but hopefully I will get that done by tonight.

In this image it is a drawing of our female figure where we were to practice drawing the hands and incorporate some of the muscles. My understanding of the muscles are not as great as I would like them, but I have gotten a better understand after Amy started drawing them in for me. All the muscles drawn in was by Amy so I can not take any credit for that. Overall, this drawing was okay. I just need to take more time to understand everything that goes within the figure.

Life Drawing: Week 11

Hello, welcome to my 11th week posting. This week has been a busy for me, as I can guess for a lot of other art students as well. I've been so overcome by so many projects that its been difficult to work on all my assignments. As usual I am still having trouble understanding the concepts of the manikin's body structures. So it difficult when we keep getting assigned all these muscle assignments. Moving forward, the class has been focusing a lot on the muscles that make up the arms. After a while I was unsure if I was even attaching muscles on correctly because the muscles seemed as though they kept layering on top of the same area. As far as the drawings go in class, I feel as though I have not been improving much on anything. I would just like come out of this course having a greater understanding of the human body. I just feel it would help my drawing abilities tremendously when I incorporate life figures with my product designs I create in my design classes.

In this image it was of our female model we did on Monday. It may be difficult to tell but the model is sitting in a chair where you can see the arm is rested on. I believe this drawing was to be more of a focus on the areas of the arms. From when I was drawing the model it seemed to look correct, but I can not be too sure. For the most part I believe I did a pretty good job on the overall drawing. It would have been interesting to have done a male model to see the differences in the male and female. In addition a male model would most likely have more muscle definition so that would have been fun to draw. Perhaps as the semester ends everything would get cleared up, I hope.

Life Drawing: Week 10

Hello everyone, welcome to my 10th week posting. This week we continued learn and add several more muscles groups to the back and sides of our manikin. These parts consisted of the latissimus dorsi, pectoralis, trapezius, and deltoid. This week was quite nice to have a choice to work on our manikins or work on our drawings. I spent a great deal of my time this week working on the manikin assignments, as I was a bit behind due to my other class assignments. I feel as though I'm not understanding any of the material we are learning now we are going more in depth with the manikin. As far as the drawings go I still not sure if I am locating the right areas to draw in the parts that make up the shoulder and back. I still continue to struggle a bit with the 30 second drawings, as I get nothing more than the basic center line and rib cage of the body that we have been working on since the beginning of the semester. I hope to get a clearer understanding of what is going on with each component of the body so I can feel more comfortable drawing.

As we are continue with our manikins, this is my progress of what was done so far. The latest parts added were the muscles talked about earlier at the beginning of the post. I feel as though these manikin assignments are beginning to take me longer and longer to do. This it may be due to the long list of muscles we are assignment or perhaps that the parts are becoming more intricate to create and apply. Either way, it is still work that needs to be done and done correctly so as long as it is worth it in the final grade I have no actual complaints. Overall I am pretty pleased with the outcome of what I have done so far. I only hope that they are in the correct locations and shape.

Life Drawing: Week 9

Hi everyone, welcome to my 9th week posting.  It has been a difficult week getting back into school mode, especially getting back into the habit of drawing again. Aside from the life drawing class I have had an interesting week catching up with my other classes. Anyways, this week we focused on areas of the shoulder, back, and obliques. This week we had time to work on both our manikin and our drawings.  As the course moves forward it becomes more difficult to draw all the components of the body within the 30 seconds gesture drawings. Although it has been getting harder, I believe it will help benefit our drawings when we do our 45 to an hour drawing.

On Friday, it was interesting to get a different perspective rather than the female model. In this drawing of the male model, he was positioned awkwardly making it difficult to begin the drawing. As I observe the drawing it appears that the torso area was a bit too long. I had trouble locating most of body parts, especially the shoulder blades. I hope as the class move forwards I will learn to locate the body parts easier. Overall I think this drawing turned out okay, but I just wish I could have located the main body parts.

This week we were assigned several muscle groups such as the teres minor, infraspinatus, supraspinatus, teres major, serratus anterior, rhomboid minor, and rhomboid major. It was quite intimidating after receiving the assignment as it seemed like a never ending list of muscle parts. I was amazed how quickly I completed the assignment. Although I have completed the assignment I was still confused if all the muscles I attached were put on correctly. I believe one of the hardest parts about the manikin assignments are just determining if they are attached correctly. Hopefully sometime this week I can get my manikin checked by our instructor. Overall, I like how the manikin is looking.

Life Drawing: Week 7

Hello, welcome to my new posting. This week we moved away from the body of our life figures and began focusing more on the leg and feet. Unlike the previous weeks I believe we were able to balance out working with both the manikin and drawing in class. I felt it was quite beneficial to have a sense of balance rather than focusing more on one than the other. As we looked closer at the form and shape of the feet it was interesting to break down the individual parts into box like forms before going in into details. I think this approach was a good learning experience that I can apply to more of what I do in my Industrial Design work. So far in class I have noticed that the feet has been one of the most difficult forms to draw. I found it quite challenging than most of the other features we have focused in class. If we were to draw the some part of the feet incorrectly then I felt the whole drawing was destroyed. In addition, It was difficult to distinguish where the planes of the feet met. This made it difficult to draw a realistic replication of the foot.

1 Hour-Foot Drawing

This drawing was drawn towards the end of the class on Friday of our male model. As I was drawing the feet I had trouble maintaining the individual planes on the toes and from making them appear like little sausages. After some addition help from the instructor, it was interesting to see that even the toe nails had a certain thickness. By giving the toe nails each individual planes I was able to create a more three dimensional image of the nails. Overall, I was satisfied with the results of my drawing. As the class continues I hope to improve my drawing skills in this class.

Midterm Blog Posting

This first half of the semester has been an incredible journey. It has gone by so quickly yet I have learned so much within the time period. The class has been one of the most interesting classes I have taken so far. It was fun to experience a different drawing style that I am not traditionally used to. I can say my ability to draw the human body has improved significantly from when I first entered the class. Although I have had similar classes in the past, this has been one of the most beneficial. It was interesting to explore all the unique features of the human anatomy that helps form the figure. I enjoyed how the class broke down each section of the human body. This allowed us have a better understanding of each piece, rather than trying to learn everything at once. I enjoyed working with the manikin because it helped me develop a greater perspective on how the muscles were aligned and layered together. By being able to work with the manikins and incorporate what we learn to the drawings it helped make a dramatic difference when drawing the life figure. I was able to see where the rib cage and pelvis where located easier, unlike before when I was not aware of their placement.

30 Minute Drawing

This is probably one of my better drawings I have done in class. I tried to incorporate everything we have learned in class by capturing the rib cage, spine, and pelvic regions. I tried to capture the proper form of each region using simple contour lines to represent to roundness of the forms. Overall I thought the drawing was pretty successful and portrayed the life figure well. I believe as the class progresses I hope I will be able to draw the rest of the figure in correct proportion and form. 

Please check out my other drawings and the manikin on my Flickr account:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59964810@N07/

Life Drawing: Week 5

Hi, welcome to my fifth week posting. This week we coninued to practice the same principals of proportions and body form. The majorirty of of the time this week was focued primary on our manikins and getting the muscles to align correctly and fit within the proper area. We begun moving towards the leg regions where we added the muscles pereneus longus, soleus, and the gastrocnemius. These are all located toward the back of the leg forming the calf muscles. As we progress forward, we are now preparing our portfolios for next week friday's midterm review. For this we are required to choose 10 of our best drawings from our class and complete the last muscle attachments to our manikin.



Anterior View



 This is just an overview on the progress I have had so far on my manikin. Although I could have held back a little bit on smoothing the layers of muscles to eachother, I am pleased with the quality of my work. During the process of attaching the muscles it was quite irritating at times. The refrence books were sometimes confusing to determine if the muscles were located towards the front or back of the manikin. But after some clarification from the professor the manikin began taking the proper shape. I actually had quite a few mistakes, as some of the muscles were flipped around and were sometimes too thin.










Posterior View of Leg Muscles

 This image is an overview of the leg muscles I have just completed today. It illustrates what was talked about earlier the peroneus longus, soleus, and the gastrocnemius. It's interesting to observe all the fine detail that goes within the human body. Although we as a class are just touching bases with the main muscle groups, there was still a great amount of work required to create each layer. I believe the experience and knowledge I've gained from making the manikin, helped give me a greater understanding on how the body is formed and moves. As our class sessions consist of  repeative drawing exercises, it begins to get easier to locate and distinguish where these muscle groups are. It helps provide a reference to our drawings by providing a more realistsic appearence.

Life Drawing: Week 4

Hi, welcome to my fourth week posting. This week we continued to practice the same principals we have learned the previous weeks, dealing with the spinal region, abdominal, and obliques. As we move forward we are now learning more about the torso region and begin to develop a greater understanding on the proportion of the human anatomy. Our next focus will be located towards the thigh and leg regions, such as the pectineus, adductors, and the gracilis.

45 minute-Male drawing

 Towards the end of the week we used a male model focusing on the same elements of proportion and form of the body. As I began this drawing I started by focusing on the mid section of the body, making sure I have the line positioned in the right angle. I then moved forward to the rib cage area where I tried to determine how it sat within the body. Similar to the previous weeks I began the rib cage with the shape of an egg. I would then follow this by process by determining where the torso region lied. It was difficult to determine the exact area of the torso due to the position I was in, I was not able to fulling distinguish it clearly. After capturing the essential areas of the body I moved forward to determine where the several muscle groups of the abdominal and obliques were located. In comparison to the female figure it was much easier to determine where the muscles lied on the male figure than the female. This was one interesting observation when having to switch from a female to a male model.

As the class progresses so does my understanding in the human anatomy. By the various repetitive drawings we produce in class it has helped increase my understanding of how the various components in the human body are positioned with one another. Although it may be a different style of drawing I am typically used to, I can see it being a great importance in my development of being a great artist. 

Life Drawing: Week 3




30 Sec. Drawings of Rib Cage


Hi welcome to my third week posting. This week we focused on the importance of the rib cage. Although there are several components that go within the anatomy of the rib cage, we can simplify the form by starting it with a basic egg shape. By approaching the drawing with the general shape of the rib cage it will help us determine where other forms of the body will be set. The rib cage can usually be established by finding the bottom of the neck towards the middle of the stomach. This is generally where the top and bottom of the rib cage can be found. We also begun focusing on the areas of the abdominal and obliques.

Our assignment this week was to determine where the quadratus lumborum, external obliques, and rectus abdominis muscles were located on the manikin. As we continue to learn the human anatomy and perform these clay models I believe it will help enhance each individual's ability to become stronger drawers. By repeated drawings of the spinal and center axis of the human body and incorporating further knowledge of the anatomy I can begin to determine where each aspect of the body falls into place. At the end of this week it was an interesting experience working with a male model. There was a dramatic difference in the male and female figures as they both held interesting qualities that separated them from each other. The female figure appeared more interesting to draw as there appeared to be more curves and angles to her body, as opposed to the straighter male body figure. Although the male held a less interesting figure I believe it was easier to determine his center axis opposed to the female. They both contained there individual challenges when I attempted to draw them, but overall it was interesting to see the difference in the male and female figures. 

Life Drawing: Week 2

Hi, welcome to my blog. Today I will be discussing some new interesting aspects in life drawing that I have learned.
The first and most important is the artist's drawing position. Life drawing is an absolute different experience from some of my previous drawing classes. It requires a looser drawing technique rather than an tight detailed drawing. I have learned that by positioning my weight on two feet rather than one gives me an overall better drawing stance. This allows me to be positioned correctly to draw at arms length away from the aisle. The importance of staying at a certain distance away from the aisle allows the artist to perform looser strokes, which prevents the tendency to draw tight. The way the artist holds his or her drawing material is also important. Aside from previous art classes that use a similar technique to writing with your palm on the surface of the paper, the drawing material should be held within your four fingers and thumb. The drawing material should be able to roll within the tips of your finger, which allows for more control. The only point that should touch the surface of the paper is the drawing material.
Another important aspect of life drawing is to understand the human anatomy. We as a class are just touching bases on the importance of the center axis of the spine. We performed several 15 second drawings focusing only on the spinal region. This will essential give us a starting point when we move further towards drawing the entire figure. We are also being introduced to the positioning of muscles within a figure by studying different muscle groups and understanding how they work. Our first assignment is dealing with applying layers of cut out clay to represent the muscle tissues onto a skeletal manikin. By incorporating the understanding of the human anatomy and drawing positions we as a class can enhance our drawing potential in life drawing.