Easter Break

I feel like I am inspired by spring I really want to be out doing things and each time the weather gets nice I get overjoyed however it keeps on getting nasty out again.  I hope that this time it will stay nice because when it is nice out I just feel like I want to do more and be more, this means drawing as well.  Because it was pretty nice out yesterday I felt in the mood to draw a character for example.  

This week in class was short, on Monday we focused on the hands again,  I really feel like I’m getting it down, now I just have to see if I can draw them without any reference.  I am getting excited for when I can draw the whole figure in a dynamic pose without heavy assistance.  I know this will take some time but still this is what I am aiming for.

I also have been working on understanding the head, since on Wednesday I was a little lost, probably the most lost I have felt in drawing in class for a while.  so I did some of my own research which you can see here.  I really would like to learn the bones of the head so that I can rotate them mentally in my head.  I know the overall shape a little bit since it is one of the most popular scare tactics in movies such as a skull and crossbones, but other than knowing this general ambiguous shape I don’t really know that much more about it and therefore I am going to use this site that I found while looking for how to draw the human head to help learn it.  It also has the other bones in the body so I might try to learn the names of some of the other bones as well.  If you would like to learn some of the bones as well here is a link to the skeleton site.

Also if you have any free time this is a really beautiful video.

Putting in the bones

            This week was a weird one since we had all our classes, something which I feel we haven’t had in a while.

            On Monday we were assigned the last of our main group of muscles.  I was happy about this because muscles are what are the most difficult for me to get right they take time and are frustrating.  But I wasn’t expecting to be sad; I guess I got a little attached to doing them without realizing it.  We started drawing the hand after learning the muscles that help move a couple of the fingers, however I was confused as to where to put things underneath since I had never really learned about hands.

            On Tuesday I went in to life drawing, it was a new experience because I asked the model to move around the stage since that is what Pixar and Disney do in there research to be able to draw a more dynamic figure in the actual animation.  It was really hard to do because you had to capture the essence of the moment by exaggerating the features all while looking at reality.  It was really tough but I hope to get better at these kind of quick gestures of real life, perhaps during the summer I’ll be able to go to a park and just sketch the people around.

            Wednesday came with a lecture on the hands and I was very happy about that.  They seem to be very similar to the feet, which biologically is very interesting because it makes you wonder if humans once walked with their hands as well.  We got to choose to draw either the skeleton or Annie’s hands, I decided to draw from real life just because I felt like perhaps seeing them in action first would help me understand the dynamics of a hand rather than a hand that is just lying there.  As you can see from my drawing I had a little trouble with the foreshortening of the thumb but other than that I was very proud of how my drawing came out.

            Friday on the other hand was very frustrating because I hadn’t gotten any sleep on Thursday.  This lack of sleep made it very hard to be able to use my head and analyze what the hand really looks like.  I don’t really have much to say about it other than it was a waste of a day and I am sad about that, hopefully this week ill get some time to study the hand by myself to make up for it.

The armpit

            I feel like this week I really enjoyed the drawing process.  This was weird because I was really tired on both of the days but I drew upon drawing horses instead and that seemed to help.  I think that even though I was enjoying it I was still having some problems placing the bones within the body.  And it was tough to draw the armpit and understand it.  Although I thought it was hilarious when Amy said to examine it upon ourselves.

            What I really find the most interesting about this week was learning about the radius and ulna.  Even though I had known that these bones are attached by each other, I did not know that they actually rotated over one another, I just think that is pretty amazing and why perhaps why arms can look so mysterious at times.  I think this week I finally got what Amy has been saying about a pose being as dynamic as the torso is.  I realized that by drawing a couple of sketches by myself that turning the arms and legs in space but not twisting the torso slightly makes for a very blah picture.

            I feel that we haven’t had a full week of drawing in a long time, and I’m really looking forward to this upcoming week because hopefully unless something comes up we will be working all week on drawing, and honestly that is exactly what I need right now.  I feel like even though we have been working on the arms for a while, I still don’t have it all the way down so getting some extra practice in this week will be great.

            However this week I’ll have a lot of homework so hopefully I’ll be able to have some free time to try and work on memorizing the muscles.

            Above is one of the pictures we drew, as you can see I was having some problems on proportions of the foreshortened pose.

Arms

This week we started the arm muscles.  On Monday we were given the option to work on the muscles that we were assigned on Friday or draw the model.   While many worked on the muscles I decided to draw.  Even though I missed out on a good social, I don’t have as many opportunities to draw the human figure once I am out of life drawing and so I want to take every moment in this class and cherish it.  While drawing I tried to have my book out so that I could understand how the muscles connected, and while I am still a little bit confused I feel as if I understand it a little  bit more.

            I worked on the muscles that night and it was easier to put it on the manikin since I understood them a little bit more than I have in previous times.  And on Tuesday in open drawing I worked on putting the muscles on the model while he posed.  I always find it a little bit more difficult to place things on a guy since we are mostly learning where everything is on a girl.   But luckily even though guys are a little bit different they are mostly the same so I just need to think more when drawing them.

            On Wednesday I was really feeling the gesture drawings they were going really well, but then disaster struck; we had to draw the armpit.  While this may not sound like the most scary drawing experience to me it was very frustrating.  The reason being that I had to place a bunch of muscles that I don’t very much about on a model whose arm is very foreshortened.  To say the least it was very difficult for me to try to imagine these muscles in a very atypical way than I had learned them.  I would have opted for a better spot to try except because our class was so full there was nowhere that I could go other than this one spot.  My paper had lots of erase marks, and frustration lines, but by the end I though perhaps I sort of had the gist of it.

            Friday I was ready to draw but sadly class was cancelled.  However this gave me time to work on my muscles and so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.

            Here’s a picture of my last drawing in open drawing.  I drew what I thought the skeleton would look like in pen and started trying to figure out the muscles in pencil.  I think ill keep on working on it since I wasn’t completely done in the time called.

I thought it was spring!

This week we started a bunch of new muscles.  It was a little weird because I felt a little rusty after coming back from spring break, but it was nice to be able to draw again.  When the professor told us that we were to draw all these new things and all within 30 seconds I was sure that there was no possible way that I would be able to do it.  To my surprise it was difficult but I was able to do it.  I feel that as I draw more I am getting more accustomed to looking at the model more than my paper.  I think it is thanks to this that I am able to get done with the gesture drawings, because I am looking at the model rather than constantly correcting my paper.  This does not mean however that I have perfected drawing the human figure, only that I can draw quickly the body in different angles better than I had before.

            I was really into drawing this week so I was very excited for open drawing on Tuesday because I wanted to draw my way and do some exercises but because of the crappy weather I had to go home before any drawing started.  To make matters worse Wednesday was even worse and therefore I was able to go home early which I was glad about since the roads were really crappy, but still sad because once again I was unable to draw.

Finally on Friday I was able to draw again.  On Friday we did a couple short poses then a long pose in which we put the muscles into what we were seeing.  Being the first time that I had really seen the muscles I was a little confused as to how they were supposed to fit, and I’m sure they are still incorrect but I am excited to be able to learn them because as Emma said after we add in these we will practically be able to draw a fleshed out model.  

Using the force

I feel like this week went by super fast perhaps it is because I missed Wednesday because I thought that the roads were going to worsen.  As the weeks progress I feel like our time is coming closer to a end, and I feel like I have only begun.  Really I think the midterm really showed me that I have a lot that I would still like to learn if nothing else I hope that I will be able to use my time over break to really get down what we have been learning all semester so far. 

I went to savers today, thrift store, looking for some inspiration and like always wondered over to the book section and found a colored anatomy book.  I think I will try to understand the muscles more while looking at this book and copying them down and comprehending them.  I feel as if I spend a lot of time working on my muscles but not comprehending what I am really doing and therefore I hope to correct this.

Currently I am reading a book on called “force” by Michael d mattesi, and I have really enjoyed all the different perspectives on drawing that he has stated.  He says that we often are drawing only to produce a good drawing not for the experience of drawing which I think is a very interesting way to think about it because often times in our society we are told that the grade or what something does in society is why it is important.  But the place you end up with a drawing shouldn’t be the most important rather it should be the experience that you have with the drawing that is the most important.  On Tuesday I decided to follow what he was saying by doing one of his exercises, called the forceful flight, and though the drawing turned out pretty sketchy I feel that I finally understood what he was talking about. 

            On Friday we then had a hour long pose and I just couldn’t get it right but even still though I was frustrated with the product and how it looked during the drawing I enjoyed the actual experience of the drawing and I think that is all that really matters.

If anyone would like to read the book it can also be found as a preview online on google books.

Midterm already?

Here is my Flicker Account-http://www.flickr.com/photos/60215163@N07/

Somehow it is weird to think that this, what I am writing right now, marks the halfway point in our class.  It is weird because it seems like I have learned so much yet still know so little.  I believe that as long as I continue learning I will always feel this way, yet I still feel that I know immensely more than I had.  One of the most dramatic shifts in my drawings was the life that was brought by standing up and at arms length away.  Even though I often go back to a “writing” hand and start to draw in the improper form I believe that using the shoulder you can really get the force into the drawing.  I really feel that I learned the most however on the shapes that are used inside the body which are consistent on everyone.  I am talking about using an egg for the ribcage and the curves of the spin.  It is just comforting to know that something that is unique for every different person has some components which can be drawn the same.  Knowing what shape things are in under the body makes it easier to draw them in proportion which was what I was most concerned about.  Most of my quick gestures include them but in particular picture one indicates a great spinal curve and egg shape.  Although I wouldn’t say that my proportions in my drawings are perfect I can undoubtedly see an improvement in them.  As seen in picture two I was having a little bit of difficulty with the back.

  I feel that my drawings were continuously pushed forward with my mannequin and learning the muscles in there.  I think that I had a great understanding of how the back muscles work together but once I got to the legs I think I was more confused.  In the coming half of the semester I hope to forward my knowledge even more on proportion and be able to fully and completely understand the muscles I have learned about and will learn about. 

Sadly I caught a terrible cold on Sunday night so I was unable to go to class on monday or open drawing on tuesday and this is my only longer pose drawing that we did on wednesday.