Hour Long Drawing!

This last week we focused primarily on drawing. It was pretty nice to get back to drawing for a couple of hours.  Also, we added the thighs to our gesture drawings. Finally, out gestures are beginning to actually look like a person. Not only that, but it also gives so much life to the gesture. With the legs I can create much more dynamic actions. I never would have thought that adding the legs would provide (what I consider to be) such a drastic improvement.

                We also worked on a longer drawing, which again, was a nice change of pace. We worked on it for an hour. And I have to say, I had so much trouble the first half. My perspective was off, my proportions were awful, and my foreshortening didn’t make any sense. We took a five minute break and I thought my drawing to be complete garbage. Once we came back, however, I was able to fix most of the issues. I think I even made it pretty good. Well, I definitely learned a lot by doing it.

                I am looking forward to the next long drawing we do. I am hoping we will have one that spans a few days even.  I feel like when I leave and come back I am able to look upon my drawing with new eyes (so to speak). Then I can find errors or inconsistencies. I noticed with our hour long drawing that for at least 20 minutes the model was floating half a foot off the ground.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=205565
Drawings done by Vertical

                I chose the image I did because I feel it really demonstrates what I was talking about earlier. It showcases how much character comes out of the arms and legs. This is especially true with the gesture in the top left corner. Her leg is jutting out to the right and you can feel her stretch her arm up into that position. It is a really, really dynamic gesture.

Trouble with the Pelvis

This week was a short one for life drawing. I am looking forward to next week so I can work on drawing the pelvis. Last Thursday we were introduced to the pelvis and how we should go about drawing it. Initially, I drew it far too low. Then, I drew it way too small. I just couldn’t seem to get it right. I glanced around the room in the hopes of seeing some instruction in the other student’s drawings. It helped a little but overall I was very disappointed in what I drew. Hopefully we work more on it this week.

Aside from that, we received our next muscle assignment. I am finding it easier and easier each time I do it. Maybe we have just been working on easier muscles, but I like to think I am getting better. It helped a lot when my professor gave individual advice a week ago. She was able to give me some pointers that made the last few assignments easier. It was also a huge help to have an example manikin in the room with me.  

I must say, I am really excited to start working on a longer drawing. I know it won’t be for a while.  But I am still looking forward to working and refining a drawing. It has been a year since I took drawing II so I haven’t really worked on a long drawing for quite some time. Consequently, I know that I have likely developed/reinforced some bad habits while drawing on my own. So, even more reason to get those hammered out.

                The image I chose was an anatomy study done in a 3D sculpting program called ZBrush. I felt it would be good to upload because of how much emphasis the artist put on the pelvis. You can clearly make out where everything is. It is extremely well done. And it makes it really easy to visualize the bones since he has shown us multiple angles.

http://zclay.com/3dcg.html

Longer Drawings

We got to do a lot of drawing this week! In both classes we did longer drawings, which I think I learned a lot from by recognizing a few bad habits. I tend to look at my paper more than the model and I get hung up on the details far too early in the drawing. Aside from the longer drawings we worked on more the spine and drawing the egg shapes for the rib cage. Doing these exercises really makes it clear that I need to work on line economy. I tend to have to look for the correct shape and thus make a ton of overlapping lines on the paper. I am really beginning to notice just how distracting and ugly this can be. I have started to draw a line or shape above the paper a few times until I really know what I want to put down. I don’t think it is really doing anything yet but hopefully I will get better as I practice.

While doing our longer drawings I noticed I was able to distinguish the different planes on the body much more easily that before. I think using contours has really helped. It is exciting to see a drawing evolve and really take shape in (what looks like) three dimensions. I feel like am also noticing differences in form more adeptly. That said, my drawings are still full of errors but I feel like am noticing them quickly. Ah well, I look forward to when I can look back and really notice an improvement.

The image below is the second drawing we did on Tuesday. Obviously it isn’t finished but I like where it was headed. This drawing took 25 minutes and went through quite a few revisions. I am really looking forward to when we do even longer drawings!

Difficulties and and Amazement

Life drawing this past week proved to be more difficult than I thought. I found the drawing of the spine to be a little harder than I thought it would be. I also found the clay muscles to be extremely difficult to make. To be honest, I thought that was going to be my strength in the class but I think I may be mistaken. I can visualize how it should look from the pictures provided, but when it comes to actually molding the muscles I simply fumble around. I can only hope that this improves over time. I have a feeling that I will be revisiting the muscles that are due for Tuesday.

Aside from the manikin, I was a little disappointed that we couldn’t draw on Thursday. That said I found the lecture to be quite interesting. The technical terms were a little difficult to grasp but I could definitely see the logic in each. I also found myself gaining a better understanding of how muscles work. It is pretty cool to hear/see a breakdown of what muscle does what. Then to go on and construct those muscles makes for a great learning experience.

This upcoming week I hope to draw a little more. My gestures need to improve greatly. Last semester I borrowed a book from my 2D Digital Imaging professor, Andy Ducett, on animation. The book contained many small thumbnail gesture drawings that were breath taking. The amount of movement and the story contained in each was astounding. All of the drawings done with as a few lines as possible. Even the inanimate objects were full of life. I hope that this course takes me in that direction.

The image I chose to attach to this post is a series of gesture drawings done for animation. You can see what I talked about above. The amount of motion and character given to them is phenomenal.