Trying to get my head arround it

Well, everything is ramping up to a close now. We have just about three weeks of class left referencing from the beginning of the week only about two weeks as I am writing this. In terms of the semester in life drawing we have begun work on the skull, being the last thing to cover I believe. This week was a four-day week, so we only had life drawing twice instead of the usual three times.

            Starting off the week on Monday, we continued to work on hands. However, this time instead of just drawing the hand in a relaxed normal position, our model had her hands on a bowl. This added another level to drawing the hands, because now we were drawing them interacting with another object. It was tricky at first, and it is still kind of hard to draw the hands, but after some guidance from Amy I feel that the drawing turned out pretty well.

On Wednesday we were told that we would be working on the skull, but instead of her giving us the usual lecture about the part she told us to just try to draw it. We all set up our drawing horses and easels around fake skulls that were lying around the room. We just spent the entire two hours of class drawing. At first it was really hard and frustrating, but by the end I was having some fun with it. I am a significantly slower at drawing than most people, so while I could tell that some people were getting bored with their drawings or onto their second or third, like my friend, I was still meticulously trying to figure out how everything fit onto my first one. There are a lot of subtle plane changes with the skull, which makes drawing it rather tricky. It seems to require gentle shading, just like trying to draw a sphere.

Quite the handful

Well then, now that the fear of mid-program review is very much behind me I can now prepare for the nearing of the end of the semester. The main point of this week in life drawing was moving on to the hands. The hands are really hard to draw, in my personal opinion. There are so many tiny little things that they can do to change their position and how they appear to the artist.

            After the lecture on the hands that Amy gave us, we all started off on our quest to draw hands. We had two options, the first option was to draw a skeleton hand that she hand on hand… and the second option was to draw the models live hand. I figured I would work my way up by drawing the skeleton hand first before I got into the complexity of muscles and skin on top of the bone. Over all it was enjoyable to draw the skeleton hand, but I have to admit I went way too slowly, I don’t think I even got the full hand done by the time the class period was over. I was measuring every little angle and trying to figure out how the bones connect, and ultimately erasing the things I screwed up on over and over and over. Eventually something came out of it that I am fairly happy with though, so it wasn’t I didn’t totally fail.

            Pressing on, the next class period I took on the brave quest of drawing a real human hand. Today we had two models so there were four live hands to chose from. I picked one that I would be able to draw without getting in anyone’s way, since the room was in chaos with skeleton hands set up and then room for two live models to sit with both hands visible to as many people as possible. So I was jammed near the door, almost in the way for people to get out. It was a tight fit, but it didn’t inhibit my drawing very much. The live hand was hard to draw as well, though now I didn’t have the comfort of seeing the points where the bones connect and change direction as easily. On top of that the model had to take a break after a period of time, which we can’t blame them for. Still it made for and interesting week of drawing class.

Of success and busy arms

             I am sorry to keep all of my avid readers in suspense. The ramp up to mid-program review was intense, a lot of running back and forth and getting my nerves up. The review itself wasn’t too fun an experience, it was basically me in a room with three to four of my teachers looking at my work and not holding back on critique. The critique was heart pounding, as they told me what I really needed to work on and what they thought I should do from here on out. Even though I thought that I didn’t do to well in the review I passed. Though it didn’t feel like the victory I thought it would. I have a long way to go it seems before I am ready to impress anyone. But I digress, back to the art portion of this blog.

            The week went by in a haze of confusion and nerve-racking preparation, as I explained above. The gist of what we did in class was trying to fit everything we have learned so far into some gesture drawings; this is a rather difficult feat. I am to slow generally to even fit in the ribcage, pelvis, spine, all together, let alone the arms, legs, hands, and feet. So my arm was moving crazily as I tried to fit everything in as the timer counted down from thirty seconds. Although, I do feel that I have gotten a better grasp on how gesture drawings work since the beginning of the semester. Not only that, but I am starting to become faster as seeing the position the model is in and how that would translate to a two dimensional piece of paper. Not to say I am a master, as anyone could tell by my drawings, but to say that I have improved. It has been a bumpy ride, and I think it would have helped if we were able to slow down the weird, twisting gestures a little bit, but over all the class is helping.

Good by to a Goat, hello to a panic.

Monday started off well because it was a chiller day in life drawing. Those of us who didn’t finish our clay manikins over the weekend were allowed to work on them in class and those that did were able to draw. I was in the category that was working on my manikin. Excuse me while I divert for a moment. While Monday started off well it actually turned out to be one of the worst days of the week. The reason for this is I found out that I missed e-mail back in February telling me that I was up for Mid-Program Review and that I had only 2 weeks instead of 6 to prepare. I will get that worked out though I think so don’t worry too much, but back to art.

It finally happened, I had to destroy goatman’s goat face because I ran out of my red clay and I want to avoid switching colors as long as I can. I will probably put something else on its head, just for personality and personalization. In terms of drawing we are now working with the arms a bit and trying to cover as much ground as possible. I am still having some trouble getting the proportions right in my drawings. I think that my main problem is that I draw the ribcage first and then add everything else as a smaller scale so that the torso looks too big. I guess when I am moving fast I forget that the ribcage doesn’t go all the way down to the pelvis, and that there is a gap.

I will continue to work on that, I am sure though that I will get better in the last few weeks of drawing. I already feel that I have been improving so there is still hope. I guess that is all for the week; I will keep you updated as I finish go into Mid-Program Review. Wish me luck.