This week we received our manikins from the classroom and had to take off the clay that was on it from last semester.  It was interesting to see all the work that was put into the manikin and how many pieces of clay were modeled underneath the top layer.  It took a lot of time but I really enjoyed seeing all the hard work that last semesters students put into their manikins.  I now have even more respect for those students because as I started working on the manikin today I realized that it’s even harder than I imagined.  For one it takes a lot of time trying to process the two dimensional form on the pages into three-dimensional form on the manikin.  Perhaps the hardest thing about it is trying to remember the names as well as the purposes for each of the muscle.  I tried to look up more information on these sets of muscles but didn’t come up with much.  I was surprised that what did come up was exercises to be able to do with them.  I think that I might try to exercise the muscles so that I can have a better understanding of how they work.  I think that by knowing how each muscle moves within my own body I will have a better understanding of how it works and moves and be aware of it in others as I draw in life drawing and in the future.  I am really excited to learn more about the muscles within the whole body so that I can understand the wonder of the human body.  Most of the actual drawings that we made this week were to look at the body and determine where the line is for the spinal erector or for the front middle.  Even though drawing only one line might seam like a boring task, I found it very interesting how much knowing how to draw this particular line can help.  We also were corrected on the way that we are supposed to draw standing up.  We are supposed to be an arms length away and curl our fingers over our drawing utensils.  I think that I need to practice this some more before it becomes habit but I can understand how using your whole arm rather than your wrist to draw adds more liveliness to your mark and drawing.