Off on the right foot, and spine.

          So here we go, this is my first official blog post from my life drawing 1 class.  Let buckle down and get started. I have been in life drawing for two weeks now, and it isn’t quite what I was expecting. I was expecting to come into the class and listen to a lot of lectures about different areas of bone, then muscles then eventually get to how skin fits over it all. To my surprise we started figure drawing almost immediately. This was a welcome turn of events as I believe it will allow me to get more drawing time and be able to improve more than just the lectures alone would have allowed. We have mostly been doing gesture drawings, which when I think about it makes a lot of sense since the model doesn’t have to hold still for as long. There is just one thing about gesture drawings; I am still rather bad at them. I know that is a duh moment for a lot of people reading this right now. I mean how could I expect myself to be instantly good at something. That is just the thing though I have done gesture drawings in a previous class, although this is the first time with actual bodies, but that should only change what I am drawing. I am still not well trained with getting my hands and eyes to fully corporate. My hands like to make things much bigger than my eyes see things. While this isn’t too much of an issue it does make putting four drawings on one page an interesting challenge, after all I am a college art student and am not able to buy a new biggie paper pad every week. As the two weeks have progressed though I have felt that I am getting better as gestures, so not all hope is lost I guess. 

Muscles I built

           A unique twist to the class that I had heard about but not paid to much mind to is manikins. You see everyone in the class gets their own half of a skeleton made out of plastic, roughly 1-2 feet high, no pun intended. Now these manikins aren’t just for sticking on our desk to gaze at every now and then to familiarize ourselves with the bones in the human body, though that makes some sense too I suppose. These manikins came with some oily modeling clay for which we need to wrestle and swear at until in forms itself around the manikin in the shape of different muscles. So not only do we learn about the skeletal system, but the muscular system. This is probably a good way to learn it, after all what could be better than building what your learning? And with that I think I will call this a night. Thanks for reading and I will update in a week.

-Stephen