Facial Features

   I cant bealve we are geting so close to the end of the semester! I feel like things have gone by very fast. In just two weeks I will be going to France for the color studio and I am very excited to go! Then after that I will be headed to california for the summer to spend time with my boyfriend, work, and work on my portfolio. Until then I am trying to stay focused on what is going on now.
   This week was a lot of fun, I enjoy drawing faces because they all are so different and interesting. I felt fairly comfortable drawing most of the features we worked on this week. The ear is the only thing I have never really concentrated on drawing previously. It was not as difficult as I was imagining it to be. I think the most important part of drawing a portrait is getting those initial plains correctly. The distance between the nose, eyes, mouth and dimension of the head is crucial. After that its fairly simple.
I hope every one is having a good week and is not too stressed out with finals coming, I am trying to stay on top of things and calm but it is hard!

EAR/Hour long side view

20 min Partner drawing

Hour long side view

Hour long side view

20 min partner nose lips

Good luck everyone!!

Skull!

We started drawing the skull this week! I think the skull is not as simple as it first appears to be. It is very easy to end up with a drawing that looks a little too cartoon like. I shied away from filling in the eye sockets with black in order to not give my skull that flat look. I wanted to put in contour lines but was a bit unsure what they should be doing. I also tried to not make the eye sockets to large, but I failed with my first try =). It is strange that even when you think you know what your doing your sub-conscious can still take over and trick you! I ended up having to reduce the size of my eyes twice and I also had to make my skull over all size larger and longer with all three drawings. I wanted to make it more round than it actually is. It was difficult to draw but very helpful at the same time. 

3/4 Front

Profile

3/4 Back

Arms and Hands

This week was fun and challenging! I enjoyed the hand drawings we did and it was interesting to explore the different challenges that come up with drawing a skeleton hand and a hand with flesh and muscle. I thought drawing the skeleton hand was easier to accomplish then the hand of the model. With the hand of the model you have to visualize not only where the bones are but what the muscles are doing underneath the skin. I am not saying either one was easy for me, just that the skeletel hand was simpler to understand  =).
Once you understand where the arm muscles are located it is easier to draw them in. They flow together nicely and it is not hard to visualize them and fit them into each other. That being said I still have a ways to go with my work, but things are slowly coming along. I think my biggest weakness is still my contour lines! I think next time in class I will force my self to put a lot of them in. I tend to shy away form them because I cant quite get them to look as they should ha. UGH!

Here are my drawing for the week!

Model Hand

Skeletal Hand

Arm Work

Arm Work

Nice bicepes !

This week was all about the arms. I thought it was interesting to know how things connect up by the shoulder and down to the elbow. Also how the pinky finger and thumb connect up into the elbo area.
Some people my find the lectures in class to be long but I really enjoy them and find it helpful to sit and listen before we get to drawing. It helps me to visualize what I am about to draw.
This week end I got all caught up with my manikin, I will admit I was behind a few muscles! I used the visible body site to help me get through a lot of them. I cant say enough how helpful I think that site is. The book is nice but its hard to figure out which muscles go over and which ones go under. The visible body clears up any uncertainty there. I thought it was cool to see all the muscles in the arm and hands. There is a lot more then I thought there was. That has been true threw out the whole semester for me, bit still! Hope every one had a good weekend! Can you believe the semester is almost over, it went so fast...


Here are a few pics of my manikin ( sorry about the bad quality!)

Ok this is just for fun! It is the year of the rabbit for the Chinses horiscope! That is my Chinese animal for my birthday so I thought I would post this fun little raabbit! Hover over him and he changes!

Cuteki love eCards

One day week

Becuase of advisment day we only have one class this week, which is really unfortunate becuase I feel like I could use some drawing time! Last week I felt off with my drawings. I was having a hard time with some proportions and things where not looking right. I guess some times your hand just does not want to listen to your brain. =) One good thing is this gives me some extra time to work on my skelliton. I have some work to do on the back still. It is coming along fairly well though. I think by the end of the semester I will feel satisfied with it.
Although I have a way to go with anatomy I already feel like this class is helping me understand how muscles structure works on physical forms. At least it gets me thinking about it when I start a drawing of anything now. I think once I rap my head around shoulders and legs my drawings will start coming out more true to form.


Drawing of Hawk for printmaking:

HELLO
It has been along time sense I posted and I apologize for not keeping up with my blog post last week! I went to Monterrey California over spring break to visit my boyfriend  at Graduate school. It was nice to get away from the Minnesota/Wisconsin/Midwest area. The weather was really nice and it was a very beautiful area. After our break Luke came back and stayed here in Menominee with me. I am sure it was not as exciting of a break for him as it was for me. I am going to be staying there over the summer so it was nice to get a feel for it.
 Getting back to drawing, the past few weeks we did some work on feet and shoulder blades. The feet were very difficult in some poses and a lot easier to understand in others. Like Amy said in class if you are going to draw feet in a drawing or painting you care about there are certin angles that just dont work well.
I understand how the shoulder blades work fairly well but it is also a challenge. I think the hardest thing to do is visualize what they are doing when the arms are extended forward on the body. When I did my hour long pose I struggled with getting the top front of the shoulder blade to look correctly.

Here are some of the drawings I did from the past few weeks of class:

Midterm Portfolio

http://www.flickr.com/photos/60254461@N02/

    In the beginning of the semester I felt  unsure of what to expect from this class. I did not completley understand the style and type of drawign we would be doing. I figured that we would start with simple drawings and move on rapidly. That is not what occured and I am greatful for that now. I found it very benificial to just focus on one part of the body at a time, and further more focus on the movment of that particular area. It was challenging to mentally understand how the spin was curving some times during drawing sessions and I feel like it has helped me work out a few kinks I had.  I really enjoyed doing the longer hour poses as well. It felt good not to be rushed and have time to really think about what the body was doing and how the muscles and bones were laying.

2nd hour long drawing

   I feel like my understanding of the body is getting more acute and so my drawings have begun to improve. I am not yet at the level I wish to be. It is helpful to have a sence of the distence from the rib cage to the pelvic bone, and how the thighs attach to the pelvic area. I still struggle with arms and shoulders. I am hoping as we move through the body I will have a great over all understanding of human anatomy as a whole entity.

   The clay models have been a challenge but a great way to learn. Even though I have made a fare amount of mistakes on mine, having to go back and change things helps me to understand better. Also it helps me to remember what goes where better. I would say it is a great learning tool. I started off with very blocked in muscles that looked very unnatural. My manikin now is starting to look more accurate, and that gives me a sense of accomplishment.

   My goals for the rest of the semester is to increase my skills in contour line drawing. I feel like I am still a bit confused by it and do not have a good feel for it yet. I want my contour line drawings to convey a sense of volume and perspective. I also would like to be able to make a fast accurate sketch of the human form with out a model in front of me.