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.