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.