Those Forgotten Feet

I forgot to blog about when we drew feet a few weeks back so I thought I would take some time and write about the experience of feet.
We first started out by learning some of the bones of the feet. For me i seemed to know or remember the bones of the feet/hand better. Maybe because of the anatomy class I took in high school we went over the tarsals and carpals quite a few times. I am one of those people that remembers either useless facts or something that has been told to me over and over again.
The feet were interesting to draw to say the least. I had a tricky time making the feet not look like one fat, flat object. There seems to be some trouble when trying to draw the bottom of the feet as well as trying to draw the top, to separate the two. Trying to make feet look like there is a roundness to them is a puzzle to me. I had to draw and redraw them over and over.
Below are some of the drawings that I did in class of feet. Exciting, I know!





Also, on a side note, here are some images from my senior show! Hope you enjoy!



This next photo is my friends helping me take down my show and we decided to have a photo shoot!

Attempting Hands and Shells

Before this last week it had been a while since I had drawn anything. I had missed the Tuesday before Thanksgiving because of a painting field trip so it's been about 2 weeks so I was feeling a little rusty.

In class on Tuesday, we started out discussing the face. We talked about the definitions for parts of the face. It was also interesting to learn about the different planes the face has and how to draw them successfully. It was hard to think of the nose having a top, bottom and side planes but it makes sense now that I think about it but I found it difficult to draw; to create space and structure for the nose as well as other facial parts was a challenge. When drawing faces, I thought it was hard to get the eyes to sit back and not seen like they were floating in front of the head. Another thing that was difficult to do was being drawn. It was weird to have someone drawing you and just having to sit and wait.
We also had a critique about our shells since some of us missed the critique on Tuesday, November 24 because of the painting field trip. I still am struggling with the cross contour shell drawing. I think I am getting better though. I think my problem is that I am over thinking things and not enjoying drawing the shell. This last time that we draw the shell, I am going to try just drawing the shell and not over analyzing it.

In class on Thursday, we started drawing hands, using the same information that we got from the feet lecture. I think that drawing the hands was easier than drawing the face but again problems arouse. I think that problem was being able to get the hand drawings to look like they had mass. It was hard to draw the poses of the hands when they were foreshortening or bent.

Below are some images of some hands and then my last shell drawing.

field trips and skulls, my two favorite things

This past Tuesday we went on our field trip to the bodies exhibit and the MIA. I had never been to anything like the bodies exhibit so it was really interesting to see. I had envisioned what it would look like but there was so much more. Everything had so much detail and there was an abundance of information, the information was almost overwhelming at times. I thought the section with the nerves was really intense, to think that we have that many nerves is unreal. I also thought the nerves looked very beautiful, especially the ones that contained the red and blue nerves together, visually very appealing. The section that i remember the most was the part with the fetuses, it freaks me out to think of something growing inside of a person. I liked the part where they showed the size the fetus would be at certain weeks. It amazes me how much the fetus grows in such a short time.
At the MIA, i love going up to the third floor to check out the Chuck Close and the other contemporary artists. Another piece that i had never seen was the Kehinde Wiley, on the second floor. The Wiley piece is placed with all the traditional paintings which is extremely interesting and fit quite well with the traditional artists. I loved his painting of the figure, his ability to foreshorten the figure is amazing and is beautifully done. There was also a new exhibition by Michael Kareken, which looked extremely interesting. They were still putting up the exhibition but what they had looked promising.

On Thursday, we started drawing the skull. I was interested in learning how to draw the skull. I think it went pretty good, i am still struggling with cross contours. I am starting to understand the structure of the skull, at least it seemed to be going better. We drew the skull twice, each for an hour and 15 minutes. I think it helped to draw the skull for a longer time period so I could concentrate and not feel rushed.
Below are the two drawings of the skull.

body language

This is my first post since midterm. I have been horribly neglecting my blogging responsibilities, hopefully I will remind myself to do this weekly. Honestly, and this is not excuse, but with my senior show right around the corner I have been ignoring all of my classes and just concentrating on painting. I have been trying to balance all my classes better for the second half of the semester. Below I have added the image of the postcard for my senior show! I am doing my show with two fellow art educators: Tracy Considine and Lance Schott. Our show is up from November 30 to December 4. Woot!



The last couple of weeks we have been working on the drawing the body and redoing the muscles. I have been really trying hard to get the muscles right but I think my problem was i was only looking at a few of the pictures in the book, not all of the images, which show how much muscle should be showing and the thickness of the muscles. It helped me immensely when i would google the names of the muscles and then look at the muscle and the surrounding ones, then I could see how the muscles worked together. I must admit, even though I think I am understanding how to create the muscles better, I still am not the greatest at it.

In class we have begun working on the feet, looking at the bone structure and the muscles on the foot. I think the foot is really hard to draw, it is a task to make the foot look 3-Dimensional, not just flat and fat. Doing the cross contour helps create the idea of arches that the foot has but cross contour is hard too.
Maybe I should just say that EVERYTHING about Life Drawing is hard and I struggle a lot in the class. There I said it. Let's put it behind us and work through it.

Speaking of using cross contour on the foot, we had another assignment to draw a shell using cross contour. This time drawing the shell went smoother but I still don't think I am using cross contours correctly. I need to be more organic when drawing the contours and less mechanical. Being more fluid with my lines will help my drawings be more effective and will help with making the shell look more 3-D.

So below are two images. The first is my shell and the second is a one hour drawing the I did in class.

Midterm Portfolio

Since the beginning of Life Drawing, I feel as if I have learned so much. At the beginning I knew nothing about drawing the human body and about the muscles and bones of the body. Now I know so much more, though I feel that there is much, much more to learn and not enough time to do it. Knowing the basics have helped me with drawing and in my other art classes.
One of my strengths is that I am willing to learn, grow and absorb as much information as possible. Another strengths is my gesture drawings, I think I struggled in the beginning but have learned how to create an effective gesture drawing.
One of my weaknesses is that I am not a fast learner, so learning all of the names of the muscles is really tricky, even learning what lateral and posterior were was hard. I also think one of my weaknesses is getting the body to look like it has weight and isn't flat.
Something that I would like learn more about is being able to look at the human body and see the muscles and then draw them correctly. I think knowing where the muscles are will help improve my drawings and make me a better artist. Also, I would like to learn how to give the body shape, not seem as flat so it looks like it has weight to it. The third thing that I would like to learn is how to foreshorten the body correctly. I have always had problems drawing things that need to be foreshortened, so I think it would be extremely beneficial if I understood how to do this, for myself and my future students.

Below is the link to images of my mannequin, shell, gesture and thirty minute drawings.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44068237@N04/sets/72157622554545567/

Oh, you know...life drawing

On Tuesday for the first part of the class period we watched a video about the pelvis. Too be quite honest, it was hard for me to pay attention to the video because it was difficult to see what the man was drawing and whoever the cameraman was should be punished by watching his own unsteady camera moves. The man seemed to know a lot about the human body and I liked the part when he talked about the human body having landmarks so it is easier to draw, you just figure out the landmarks and connect the dots.
After the video, we spent some time learning about our assignment, muscles for the booty area. And then we saw a couple of peoples blogs and then spent the last half hour drawing. It's amazing how quickly that last half hour passed when you're drawing. You want more time so you can create a better form of the human body so the time passes faster.

On Sunday, I started the muscles assignment. Even though it was only 4 muscles, it was kind of tricky. I was doing okay until I came across making the IT Band. I was having trouble figuring out which one it was and if I was putting it in the correct spot. Other than that it seemed to go pretty well.

more muscles and drawing

On Tuesday in life drawing we went over the ribcage, trying to understand how the ribs look, how to think of the ribcage as an egg and that the ribs sit higher in the back than in the front. After learning a crap ton about the ribs we spent the rest of the class period building muscles on the ribcage. Even thought there was only a couple of muscles we had to make it still took a long time. I think that the bigger and longer a muscle is the harder it is to make. It is hard to get the right size and the right placement of the muscle. Even though building muscles is hard, I enjoy doing it and I think, if this wasn't my last semester of classes and didn't feel extremely rushed in life in general, I would like doing this more.

On Thursday, we spent the class time drawing the body. Missing that week of classes really seemed to have affected my drawing skills. Also, it didn't help that I forgot a lot of what I learned and had to dig deep within my brain to remember the tips and tricks of the human body. The 25 minute drawings were tough. The first where the model was standing was easier because it was straight on and there wasn't any foreshortening to deal with. The next two 25 minute poses were EXTREMELY difficult because the model was lying down and I had to foreshorten the body which is really hard when I barely know how to draw the body standing up facing me. Also, foreshortening the ribcage was really hard and I would draw the ribcage over and over and over again, not seeming to get any closer to the correct position. Bah!

There are two pictures below: one is of my mannequin and the other is drawings done in class