Hello All,

This week we learned about the head/skull. We had a goal to reach to have three drawings of the skull. One three quarters view of the back of the head (see to your right), one three quarters view of the front (coming soon) and the profile or sideview of the skull (see below). The skull at first did not look TOO intimidating, however, it was very difficult. I had so many troubles getting the 3D effect to pop out in front of me. I really did try to create a little shadow, which Amy said we could do since, especially the back of the skull, is kinda boring and dull. So, I shaded the bottom "knobs" to show that they were going under, otherwise known as a bottom plane.
The profile of the skull was different, but in a good way. I had a lot more to look at, but that means a lot more to draw. I had trouble with the nose. My mind refused to draw the nose correctly. The nose is actually fairly long, and I had made it too short. Amy came around and helped me correct it and then we learned that in order to make the object (drawing) pop out more than others, give it more attention to detail. So, i wanted the cheek bone to pop out, and therefore I made contours stronger and shading more concentrated. I think I did a fairly well job of getting that to pop out more so than the part of the skull behind it.  Overall, I hope we spend more time on the skulls. I do need to draw a front view of a skull too, but I have no idea on how to start it. I hope we draw some today!

Well, See you all next week!

Chelsey

Hands

Hello All,

This past week we mastered HANDS! Boy o boy, hands are difficult. I think the hands frustrate me three times more than feet. I think the wrist is throwing me for a loop. The foot is longer and has the big toe jutting right out of the top, just like all the other toes. With drawing the hand, the thumb is lower and connected to the hand base totally different than the rest of the fingers. The thumb also only has two sections where the fingers have three. We had to draw at least one of each "type" of drawing. One was supposed to be of just the model's hand posing. The second was supposed to be of a skeleton hand. Many thought that drawing the model was harder thant drawing the skeleton. I, however, enjoyed drawing the model's hand over drawing the skeleton. The skeleton had so much detail that I think it psyched me out. With the model, I felt at ease, drawing in my own "norm".

Hand Drawing A Hand

I thought the picture of this week would be a little light-hearted and fun. I wanted to post the famous hand drawing a hand since we concentrated so much on hands. I think this drawing is funny since it goes in a loop of 2D to 3D and so on and so forth. This hand drawing represents my frustration of drawing hands. The progress grows and then stops short and then starts to grow and then stops short again. It will be like this until I completely get comfortable with the new drawing "norm" as well as the difference from hands to feet. 

Speaking of drawing in my "norm", this past Tuesday Amy made us draw "correctly". This whole time our class was drawing like we were handwriting. I guess this was the most comfortable position we knew. However, there is a much better way to draw. With drawing with your shoulder rather than your wrist, you are able to get more movement in your drawing, creating more smooth transitions than with just your wrist. I had a hard time breaking the handwriting pose habit, but I tried and tried. I think it is true that you are able to get more space in drawing with your shoulder than wrist, but it's getting accustomed to the technique that is going to be difficult.

Well, see you next week!

Chelsey

Week ending April 2nd

Hello,


So sorry this is late. I have been having a busy and sick week. Today is the worst, but it will hopefully be gone in the next 2 days. This past week we learned a lot about muscles. We concentrated on drawing the muscles in the shoulders and pecks. In the long pose on Thursday, we had our model pose lying down with his hand above his head. This gave us a great view of his armpit. I concentrated on the muscles that attached by the pecks/ribs and then it stretches back. I also learned to draw the contours on the arms. Amy said the arms weren't difficult to learn, but just to know them was good. I am comfortable drawing the ribs and the peck muscles, now I just need to work on the arms, hands, and neck/head. I am not sure if I will like drawing the face. I have seen a couple of students that have already added in the face to their drawings, but I haven't gotten that far. I'm not quite sure where to start. You'll see in the long pose that I attempted to start drawing the neck, but I'm not sure if I was doing it correctly. I know there is a million different ways to approach drawing, but I think Amy's input so far has helped me tremendously, so I think I will just wait for her advice.

I found that I really enjoy longer poses. The pose on Thursday was the longest we've done so far. It lasted about an hour and 40 minutes.
As for LeRoy, he is coming along. I will hopefully have pictures of him posted in the next posting or two, so stay tuned!
Gestures are still difficult to draw thoroughly and accurate. It still takes me about 2 minutes to get everything in with a well drawn structure. Otherwise, it looks like kindergarten scribbles. I hope to improve on this in the next upcoming class periods.

Until Next Posting,

Chelsey K

Shoulders

Hello All,

DaVinci's Shoulder Study

 This week was all about working the shoulders, literally. We learned about the shoulder blade as well as the muscles around it. We learned mainly where to look for the muscles, and how to draw the simple triangle of the blade. I thought this was going to be very difficult. And at first, it was very difficult. I did not realize that the shoulder blade went half way down the back of the ribs. This was tricky since at first I was drawing this dinky triangle as the shoulder blades.
I did also find out that I need about 2 minutes to each get to the shoulders. We did a lot of gesture drawings on Tuesday, and I have to tell you that I could not for the life of me get to the shoulders. I would draw the spine, ribs (egg), hips, start of the legs and then the beeper would go off. I had to get the "egg" right so I concentrate most of my time on that, so it took forever to even get a hint on the shoulders in within the 30 second and 1 minute gestures. Finally, when the time was increased to two minutes could I then add the shoulders with some time to refine them.
As my picture this week, I chose to show DaVinci's shoulder studies. He does a very good job defining the muscles and curves the the shading of them is just jaw-dropping. I wish I could draw like DaVinci. 
After the gesture drawings, we moved on to a longer pose. We were told to specifically concentrate on the shoulders and arms. I had a pretty decent drawing by the end. Amy had come around to help me and helped me with the muscles. After that was done, I better understood the armpit and how the muscles formed it. I put a lot of contour around it and made the elbow very boney.
I have yet to master the shoulders in the one drawing session we had, but I hopefully will learn to draw them without any help.
As for LeRoy, well he has a ways to go before we can call him finished. This week we had two muscle assignments which will bulk him up in the shoulders and upper arms. After this I imagine we will concentrate on the lower arm and hand, which I have a feeling will be very delicate.

Until Next Week,

Chelsey

Before Spring Break..

Wow, it’s already half over,

Foot

 

Contour of Foot

This semester has flown by so far, but yet when I look back I have learned so much and that might be the reason. This past week before Spring Break, we were concentrating on the foot. We had all of Thursday to learn to draw and master the art of the foot. I personally do not care to draw the foot. I think feet are ugly and they are extremely difficult to draw accurately. I struggled at first, but once I got into more contour drawing, I did alright. I think that we should learn a little more about the foot and how to draw it. However, when I think about it, we usually draw the model standing and then there isn’t much feet to draw. I mean, the main structure of the foot is hidden since he is standing, it more so the ankle you concentrate on. I am looking forward to this next half of the semester in really refining my drawing skills. I hope to master the knee and shoulders since I’m positive that I am not drawing them quite right.

Cont

LeRoy is doing alright as well. He looks like he is almost finished but I have a feeling that we will be doing a lot of work on the hands and forearms since those muscles are so delicate and there are so many.  I am not sure that we will get to the face muscles, but that might be interesting if we do.  I do think this next week will bring some new information, probably in the shoulders and neck. I am looking forward to drawing some more next week, because believe it or not, I miss my life drawing class!

Until Next Week,

Chelsey

Midterm Blog Post

Midterm Portfolio

Hello!

Hour Long Pose, Female

Above this blog post is the link to my portfolio so far.
This week we had another hour long pose to add to our collection of drawings.
Also, this post is going up on Thursday night since our portfolio is being graded on Saturday! Nerve-racking!

So far in this semester, I have learned a tremendous amount.  My drawing skills have changed dramatically. Not only the technique, but as well as the accuracy. In my first two drawing classes, it was all about shade and highlight, not line. Life Drawing is the opposite, you try to capture that outer line and the muscle “inner” lines, to create a smooth 3D-like drawing. Such as in my 5 minute drawings. So far, we have been learning all the muscles with our mannequin-building. I think the mannequins give me a great understanding as to how the muscles should look when drawing, sort of a close up—Since you obviously can’t go up to the model and look at his thigh.

Hour Long Pose, Male

Anterior Mannequin

These next couple of weeks, I would like to learn the shoulders and knees. We went over the knees in lecture already, but I still am unsure how to draw them fully. I guess with experience and practice I will learn best. I also hope to improve my accuracy and size ratio, which is what I know that I struggle with a little. I am comfortable with contour, (as shown in both hour long drawings as well as the 30 minute drawing) but I assume later on that we won’t be able to do contour for every drawing. I also would like to learn how to draw the neck properly. The shoulders and neck are probably the most difficult when you do not know what is underneath. I would also like to learn a little on facial construction, how to draw the nose and mouth correctly. Overall, I have learned a huge amount and it has been a fun experience, I enjoy the live model drawings versus a still life of vases and boxes. 

Until Next Week, 

Chelsey

Week 5

Hello all!

This week we got to learn a lot on how to draw the pelvis. I had some trouble with it at first but then eventually began to understand the way the hips come up so high. I thought I was making the butt muscles of our models so big, but when you really look at it, the hips do come up that high. I found that I am more comfortable in drawing the back view, I can see the butt muscles better as well as where the hip bones turn on the side into the front.

This is NOT my drawing, this is a reference I found very helpful.

To help me understand how to draw gesture drawings better, I looked online at some gesture drawings of other artists out there. I thought that would be my picture of the week since it did help me better understand the form of the pelvis. I found some great examples on how to draw in the lower half, and to visualize through the skin and down to the bones. I can see that my drawings are not TOO off from the examples I found, but they do need some improvement. I will hopefully be able to pick out the hip muscles and such very quickly by next week.

This week, specifically Thursday, went a little slow. I was not in the best of health, so, feeling dizzy and mucus-filled I trotted through class, struggling to concentrate and zone in on my drawings. I did give my attention to Amy when she spoke of our upcoming midterm portfolio review. This makes me a little nervous, since she and others say that she is a very hard grader, expecting a lot. So, we will have to photograph our 10 best drawings as well as 3 different angles of LeRoy, my clay mannequin. LeRoy.. oh LeRoy. He is looking pretty hunky. He now has butt muscles, and quad muscles, and will hopefully next week (or the week after next) have calves and shoulders.

Until Next Week.
Chelsey