Final Post

Photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/63070158@N08/

Whew, the semester is over. It has been an intense last few weeks but I am pretty happy with where I ended up. Life drawing has been a great class. Admittedly, much better than I had originally thought. I mentioned in my midterm post that I am not very confident in my drawing ability.  This semester has really helped me become more confident and I think my work has really made many improvements. I did a self-portrait in Drawing 2 and the one I did for this class is so much better. I have been blown away at the depth and form I can create by effectively using contours.  Moreover, it is exciting to see how much movement gestures can take on. I am thrilled by the energy that some of my gestures expel (namely gesture 4). That said, I am very slow drawer. I am not entirely sure why, but I tend to be very slow and timid. While gestures have required me to shed that a little bit, I still feel it is my biggest problem. I am leaving with a number of drawings that I am extremely proud to have done. My lateral drawing of the skull turned out really well I think. With an angle that doesn’t show depth all that well, I learned a lot about exaggerating it to give it some physicality. I am also very happy with long drawing 7. While it isn’t without its problems, I think it was one of my first really successful use of contours.

I honestly didn’t think that the manikin would help my drawings. Or at least, wouldn’t influence them as profoundly as it did. I initially thought that the manikin was simply academic rather than utilitarian. And in fact, it is both. It was really cool to be able to build the muscle in clay, see it on myself, and see it on the model while drawing. I had a lot of trouble with the arm muscles on my manikin. But I think doing them over and over really helped me understand the form.

I am taking digital characters next semester so what I learned in life drawing will undoubtedly be instrumental in that class. But as I mentioned above, I am coming away with a bit more confidence in my drawings as well as a renewed interest in the traditional arts.

Whole Body

Wow, I really cannot believe the semester is done. But as it is, it comes as no surprise that we are now combining everything we have learned. The past couple classes have been all about the entire body. I did a few drawings on Tuesday but we mainly focused on drawing on Thursday. I was pretty disappointed with my work, but hopefully that changes on Tuesday (the last day of class!). I don’t really think it was bad because we are combining everything, but rather because it was a bad day. Well, at least I think that’s what it was.

My manikin is in rough shape. I need to redo about 8 of my arm muscles and tweak some of the leg muscles. Thankfully, I think it should make my manikin look a lot better. But, it kind of sucks to see him torn up.

I have begun my self-portrait and it is going all right. I really struggle with facial features, which I will probably start tomorrow. I hope that my ability to draw the structure will kind of hide the fact that I suck with everything else. I am hoping to really work on it over the summer though. In addition, with digital characters next semester, I hope that I can really get better. I think I am going to have to hold myself back from using shading. I just need to use my contours effectively.

http://drawsketch.about.com/od/figuredrawing/ss/drawingnoses_5.htm

I tried to find an image of the face that used contour lines to describe form. I think I found a pretty good one. Not only that, but the nose is really great. And the eyelids feel like they wrap around the eyeball. Overall, I think it is a nice portrait. Hopefully, I can apply the same technique in my self portrait!

Eyes, Ears, and Mouth

This week we learned about eyes, ears, and the mouth. Out of all of them, I have found the eyes to be the most challenging. There is so much information you have to pack into such a small place. I think what was the hardest part was giving the eye lids some depth. It was also hard to make them wrap around the eye and go back in space. The ears aren't too bad. They were a little complicated, but not difficult. I think they will be much harder if I try to draw them without any reference. And finally, we drew the mouth. The mouth was probably the easiest part of the face to draw. The only thing that tripped me up was getting the lips to pop out and feel "solid". Otherwise I think it was quite successful. 

I am not looking forward to starting my self portrait. Despite not having too many big problems with the ears or the mouth, I did have a really hard time drawing the face as a whole. I am not sure what it is, but when I try to put all of the pieces together it just doesn’t go very well. I am hoping to put enough time into the self portrait to help get over this problem. We will see I suppose. 

I found a drawing of an eye that I thought did everything I was having trouble with. The artist did a nice job of giving depth to the eyelids. Moreover, the folds in the skin have a nice physicality to them. The brow also has a very nice presence. It definitely feels like it comes out further and sort of encompasses the eye. All in all, it is a fantastic drawing and it employs many of the ideas that Amy has taught us.

http://www.dueysdrawings.com/eye_tutorial.html