Shoulders and Collar bone

The collarbone is a seemingly insignificant detail on the human body. Well, it actually does quite a bit. When I added it to my drawings last week it helped me visualize the top of the rib cage and aided in the creation of the shoulder plane. That plane was really, really important to my drawing. The model was on a slight angle, with her shoulder pointed right at me. I didn’t establish the plane right away; in fact, it wasn’t until Amy pointed it out. I wish that I had remembered to take a picture of it; I may upload it and edit this post. Anyway, we also took a look at the shoulder blades. I had a huge problem getting them to look right on my gesture drawings.  On Tuesday we are going to be doing another longer pose, I hope to be able to get a good view of them. I really need the work. I am not sure what it was, but I just wasn’t able to get them to look like they were shoulder blades (let alone they even belonged there).

We also began to work on the shoulders on our manikin. I am a little discouraged with my manikin at the moment. Last week it fell off the base and onto the floor, leaving many muscles smooched and deformed. So, I have to go back in and make them a little bit better. Aside from that, it is going well. The shoulders are pretty easy to do, a lot of large muscles.

For now, I chose to include an image I found that shows the divide and definition of the different planes via the collar bone. As I mentioned above, I think I will take a picture of my longer drawing and upload it tomorrow. But, you can see what I mean with the division of the shoulders to the chest and how it helps you identify were the top of the rib cage sits. 

http://www.portrait-artist.org/misc/neck-shoulders.html

Oi, feet.

Oh how I hate toes. Seriously.

If you couldn’t tell, we drew feet last week and I had an extremely difficult time with the toes. The final pose of class had me completely and utterly stumped. I couldn’t even figure out how to approach the toes. I feel like I am able to identify and render the different planes correctly, as well as get the perspective and dimensionality right. But I seem to only be able to do it for the bulk of the foot.

Other than that I suppose I am surprised at how weird and complicated a form the foot is. Putting all of the details aside, the basic flow of the foot is odd. This is especially due to the ball of the ankle. It makes my contour lines rather wavy and at time hard to follow. Take this, add in the details, account for the small size, and you have a ridiculously difficult body part to draw.

Ok, even though I think it is very challenging I am still having fun. I love that you start out with primitive shapes then deconstruct them and add the detail. In many ways it reminds me of 3D modeling. I know I said its small size made the foot difficult to draw, and I stand by that, however, it also makes it easier to measure and get the correct proportion. I think (to some extent) I am going to try to mirror this methodology in my larger drawings.

Jimmy Xu | 

http://ifthexufits.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html | http://ifthexufits.blogspot.com/

I was hoping to post some of my feet drawings but I left my sketch pad at school. So I did some research and found an amazing artist (Jimmy Xu) who did a series of feet and posted them on his blog. He has many drawings of feet, but I chose one that shows what I was talking about. He does a great job of showing all of the changes in the surface. It dips and rises over and over in a random, irregular way. I love the plane change of the right foot. The shaded line that runs the length of the foot does an amazing job of distinguishing the top plane from the bottom. His toes are also very, very well done.

Midterm Portfolio

Photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60152151@N04/

The first half of this semester has been an exciting one. I have improved more than I thought I would. Not because I lack the ability to learn, but rather because I lack confidence in drawing. So, it is very exciting to see improvements (notably in my egg-like rib cage shape, which has become second nature.) I have also noticed that at the beginning of a drawing I immediately search for either the center line or the spine. I think this has greatly aided in my ability to draw proportionally.  I have noticed, however, that I tend to make the pelvis either too small or put it too low (sadly, this is showcased in drawing 8).

    But, my semester has been fairly positive, so I intend to keep this blog post positive as well. Coming into the class I wasn’t entirely sure of how to begin drawing a person. These past few weeks have laid (what seems to be) a great foundation. I feel this is especially true for contour lines. I was extremely happy with how well the contour lines worked in drawings 1 and 2. I really tried to define the different planes of the body and the changes in topology.

    I am also very happy with how much the manikin has helped me. I feel like it gives me a more tangible understanding of the muscles. I have a greater understanding of how they create the human form. It is especially exciting when I am able to identify a muscle or muscle group while drawing.

Done by David Giraud - http://mojette.deviantart.com/

    I thought long and hard about what image I want to be on this post. I was torn between a marvelous anatomical rendering done by a famous classical artist or yet another 3D model. As you can see, I ended up choosing an amazing anatomy study done by one of my favorite 3D artists, David Giraud. I really enjoy life drawing, and while this class focuses on 2D, it is exhilarating to see what we are learning so skillfully applied to my chosen discipline.

    I hope that I continue to push myself this next quarter. As we delve deeper into the human form I can only assume it will become more challenging. I look forward to the growing as a artist and as a person.

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.