Muscles

So when we got our assignment on Thursday that we were going to start building muscles on our mannequin, I thought it would be relatively easy, just roll out some muscles and call it a day but,as it seems with most things lately, I was wrong. It took me about 3 hours to complete the muscles on the spine. I would begin by rolling out the clay the same way that brought me back to my childhood snake-making playdoh days, but then things go a little tougher when the clay had to go in a certain spot and be a certain size. Oh, how I love a challenge. My muscles never seemed to look right, they were too long or too thick. Who knows if even now, after all the work, if they are right. But I definitely can say I spent a lot of time on it.

In class, drawing the figure went better. I think the note taking session on how the spine works really helped. I feel better knowing the technical terms of the spine, it makes me feel smarter, which is a plus!

Below are two pictures. One is of my mannequin and the other is the drawing of a 15 minute pose.

hello life drawing

Being that I had never had any life drawing classes, I felt inexperienced from the start. Though I don't know what I am doing, I am still ready to learn and to grow.

The first day, I had no idea what to expect. When we first started doing the 30 second drawings, it reminded me of a keyboarding class I had taken in high school. In the keyboarding class, I felt anxiety, hoping to not make mistakes and to "keep up" with my peers. I felt the exact same in life drawing on Tuesday. I understand that it takes time to become good at something but at the same time I feel the need to be good at it right away. Hopefully, with time, I will be able to understand the human body and be able to draw the human body.

On Thursday, I thought "Okay, I can do this and maybe even be better at it than last time" but on the contrary, I felt as though I had gotten worse. Time seemed to be slipping away and there was nothing I could do to get better. I found some help when Josh did a demo of how to draw the human body. Drawing that way I felt that I was getting somewhere. When we did the half hour drawing using cross contours of the body, I had trouble doing it but I understood what to do, it was just hard getting it to look correct. It will really help when we start working on the mannequins.

For the homework over the weekend, drawing the shell using only cross contours, I had a lot of problems. I went over each line several times, erasing and redrawing quite a bit. After working on it for a couple of hours, I still felt like it was just alright, I still have a loooong way to go.

The first picture on the top is one I did in class after Josh gave us a demo. The second picture on the bottom is of the shell that was the assignment over the weekend.

Introduction Post

So, I chose to take life drawing because I thought it would be very interesting and helpful to understand how to draw the structure of the body. I have always struggled with drawing the human body so this class will give me the information and practice that I need to make my drawings successful. I really want to learn how to become a better artist and to become more confident in my endeavors in the art community. To look at structures of the body and see the muscles and lines and draw them successfully is what I would love to do. I love learning and want to become a well-rounded person, learning all aspects of art.

The two images below I painted in painting 2 class last fall. I enjoy painting still lives that have strong shadows and I love working with negative space in my compositions