This is my final blog entry. I have included my favorite skull drawing that I have completed, my favorite portrait drawing (all three are in a post right before this one) and my skeleton drawing. I learned so much this semester, my drawing skills have improved greatly since life drawing one, which is great!! I definitely tried to embrace and open up to different drawing styles than my own, which I think made for some unexpected and interesting drawings that I am very happy with. The skeleton drawing at first seemed like such a daunting task, but the hardest part was just getting started. After I mapped out the whole thing, it was just a matter of correcting and adding detail, which was actually really fun for me. It was also nice to work this large, and it is great to have this finished piece coming out of this class. Overall, I truly did learn so much and produced lots of great drawings, which is what I wanted to get out of this class, so I am very happy!

These are my three portraits that I completed. I LOVED making these drawings, and learned so much while making them. Not only did I learn a lot about the feature of the face and upper body, but I really did learn and explore a lot of different drawing techniques. The first portrait I completed was of Leslie, the first vertical picture. This is probably my least developed drawing, which makes sense since it was my first attempt. The second portrait is of Missy, and is the last picture shown. This is my favorite portrait I completed. There was a lot of figuring out to do in this piece because I was at an awkward angle looking down at Missy. This made for a lot of erasing and re-drawing, but I think that gives the drawing a lot of life. I also used different mark making than I usually use, which brought life to the drawing as well. The final Portrait I completed is the horizontal picture. With this drawing the main thing I figured out was measuring. Since I measured BEFORE I put down a mark or a line, it took me a lot less time to finish this drawing, and I believe I achieved a likeness to the person I was drawing.

These photos are from trying to correct my skull drawings from memory. Even though trying to draw the skull from memory was the most difficult task in life drawing class, using a different colored pencil to correct these drawings was the most helpful thing I have done in class. I learned so much more about the features of the skull by correcting my own drawings than from drawing from memory. This activity was extremely helpful because it allowed me to see what I what to draw by default, and then how to prevent myself from making the same mistakes a second time.

These images are from attempting to draw the skull from different views by memory. The is was the most difficult thing I have done in life drawing class by far. It is difficult enough for me to draw the skull while looking at it, let alone from memory. When I would draw the skull from life, I don't use the box structure because that is very difficult for me to grasp, so I wasn't sure how to use that when having nothing to reference either. It was hard to know where to start the drawings as well. I definitely feel that I need A LOT more practice before I can come anywhere close to drawing the skull accurately from memory.

I have lost my camera which is why I haven't posted in so long, but I figured I will just write some words without pictures for now until I can find it. We just got done making the three portraits in class of our own classmates. This has by far been my favorite project in this class. It isn't very often that I get to draw people from life and for that extent of time. I REALLY enjoyed it! I have always had a love of drawing/painting people, but never pursued it very often since it is so hard to have models to sit for so long. I thought that drawing in small groups was extremely helpful as well. This allowed me to get extremely close up to the figure, as opposed to having the whole class look at one model. This helped me get details in the facial features, and also allowed for some new and interesting angles as well which is challenging, but also makes for a more interesting drawing. I have explored a lot with mark making in these drawings that made me step out of my comfort zone, but ended up turning out great. I also learned the importance of measuring AS I am drawing as opposed to afterwards, which made for a lot less corrections in the end, and overall less time to make the drawing as a whole.

Week Four

This week we spent a lot of time working on drawings from the cranium without the features of the face. We had to do 5 views, some with value some with cross contour, and some with both. Value is definitely what comes natural to me when drawing, but for some reason I feel that my drawing with only cross contour is the most successful. I found that I was able to figure out a lot about the forms on the skull a lot better with the cross contour drawing. I have also been struggling with making my forms look more three dimensional, and I feel that my cross contour drawing looks the most three dimensional. That same drawing starts to resemble a brain, which I found really interesting. I definitely found the back view the most difficult to capture. I think it's hard when there isn't as much form to work from like the back view.

Week three we did three 2-3 hour drawings of the skull. The first is a three-quarter front view, the second a profile view, and the third a three-quarter back view. Doing value was optional for these drawings, and I chose to add that in there on all three. I really struggled with a couple of things. Firstly, it is extremely hard for me to the skulls appear 3-D. It is really difficult for me to create lines that don't naturally exist on the skull to make it appear to look 3-D. I think that my back view ended up being the most 3-D drawing, due to the contour lines that I added on the cranium. So something I am going to continue to work on is adding in those contour lines that really help define the space.

The second thing that I struggled with in these drawings was creating the value not as it appears in real life, but to shape the value so the skull appears more 3-D. I struggle with this A TON! I am a painter, and usually my main goal in my paintings is to capture the light as it hits my subject. To simply disregard this is definitely going to take a lot of time and practice for me to grasp this new concept.

I haven't been in life drawing in about two years, so my skills are definitely a little rusty! I remember in life drawing one that I really enjoyed drawing the skull, so I was excited to begin life drawing two with this same task. Here are a couple of my practice drawings from the first week of class. These are basically just trying to get in the groove of drawing again, and trying to become familiar with some of the nooks and crevices of the skull. With these I was trying to stay focused on getting the features semi correct, with also adding some value to show depth.

Paintings

I posted some of my paintings as a separate page, so check them out!