Portrait

Finally, this is my last post for the semester. Sad, but exciting. Drawing a self-portrait was difficult for me in many ways. I found it difficult to only look in the mirror and draw. I'm use to a photograph and other sources. The next thing that was difficult was drawing the face so large. I over exaggerated the size of the eyes without realizing it and I noticed the mistake after the drawing was completed. I think that this could have been improved by stepping back or mapping out my page better. I enjoyed doing this though it really put our skills to the test and I think in that aspect my drawing was successful. I also enjoyed using just lines, up until this point my drawings has always been drawing the outline and shading that portion afterward. I know this class will improve all parts of my artwork. Now I kinda wish I could do all my other classes over :) 

Final Posting and favorite pictures

These are a few of my long drawing from class. They are also a few of my favorite. I enjoyed learning the process and I think that these drawing were successful. The top drawing is especially my favorite and I really think that it portrays the knowledge that I learned in class. I think the strongest part of the drawing is the lines. The eye drawing is also another part I improved on. Drawing portraits and facial features has always been on of my favorite things to draw as you can see my drawing below I have improved a great deal on making the eye and the nose look more 3-D. 

I feel like this shows a good change in my drawing and how this class has helped me. The class has helped me a great deal in other aspects. Proportions has always been a big struggle for me, and I know that learning how the body works and how parts relate to each other has helped me with my struggle. Another aspect of the class that I really enjoy is sketching a person with out looking a somebody or a picture. I draw portraits from pictures all the time and I am able to represent them pretty closely, but if I were to try to draw a face with out a model in front of me the picture comes out looking like a cartoon. This past week after learning the steps in drawing I was sketching portraits on a napkin because I knew how the facial features, the skull, and the body was formed. 

Blogging is still on edge for me. In ways I think it was very successful, but some part of me felt like it took away from drawing. Noting on other blogs and posting frequently became a chore that was hard to keep up with. But, I do think it was a great aspect to the class and seeing other student's drawing has been a great experience. It has helped me see what kind of level I am at, and maybe things that I need to improve on. I noticed the use of line in several drawings and I used that for my own drawings. Life Drawing has been a great experience and more importantly a very valuable one. 

The experience of building the mannequin has been a great break from long poses and gestures. I think that learning the back, leg, and ab muscles were the most important when it came to drawing the models. They really helped me with line and contours. The most valuable muscle that I felt really added to our drawing abilities was the lat muscle. Drawing a gentle line to portrait the muscle added a great touch to drawings. I do think that some of the muscles were unnecessary and the time taken to build these muscles could be cut back to concentrate more on drawing. 

Tattoo project

These three drawing are tattoos that I did for my cousin over thanksgiving. It was really challenging because they were portraits of the kids with a lot of clothes on. So it was a process to make up a body that would work with the poses I was given. Another challenging piece was making the faces simple but realistic. I enjoyed doing these because they took a lot of creativity to figure out out what would look the best. The tattoo's will line up across the back and shoulders and each is three inches big. 

Ceramics

This semester I was also in Ceramics 1, and these are just a few of my projects. The right is a continuous curve bowl that was glazed with wax resist. The other two are mugs done in class that were in a series. This is the first time I had to pull a handle for a pot, so it was an interesting process. 

Other Artists

For this weeks blog, I was looking at local artists and I came up on the website www.localartists.org.  The painting above is by a woman named Barbara Lablanc. The website is basically a site that amateur artists can post their work for others to see. I think that this is a great idea. There are millions of artists in the world with brilliant ideas. I think that every artist should stop and appreciate not only what makes art art but who make it art. There are thousands of amateurs who we should all expose ourselves to and appreciate. 

BLOGGING

Blogging has been a love-hate relationship for me. I enjoy a lot of aspects but at the same time I feel like it takes away from the class. It has been interesting process that has taken a lot of time. The biggest positive about blogging has been learning about other people as artist and also their progress in the class. The most interesting thing that I have come across in the blogs has been Ben West's Yo Dawg post. I thought that not only were the painting interesting but the idea behind it was fun. This blog just shows how art can make a great project in many areas of life. It also made me think about how art can make a more positive and exciting environment. As a teacher I would like to incorporate  something like this in my classroom. I think something like this could utilize my classroom to improve the community. 

A big frustration that I found with the blog was commenting on different group members blogs. I noticed that this was very inconvenient. When I wanted to comment on a group members posts they either had no posting to comment on (including assignments). I don't think that we should suffer from the lack of other peoples posts. I was not able to comment a great variety on some areas of the blog, but I did try to incorporate it.  

At this point of the semester I feel like my blog does have some aspects that need to be improved, but I also believe I did a good job of posting assignments, blogs of my choice, and portraying my improvement throughout the semester. These I think are the most important aspects of the blog. I also feel like my blog is professional and fun at the same time. I tried to be professional and follow assignments while I also tried to make the blog my own. The quality of the pictures were easy to understand and make out. I used Jing to successfully post my ideas through my gestures. I tried to make my blog clear and easy to understand. 

Finally, I believe that the idea of blogging is great. I do find it frustrating in commenting on other peoples blogs. The biggest frustration I had was the lack of internet. I commute and live at home with my parents. This has been a huge problem for this blog concept because I cannot get access to the internet easily and I found myself falling behind on it. I had to use the internet during other classes and this caused me to miss out on lectures. But, for the most part I found the Blog to a great idea and a great thing to be incorporated in the classroom. 

Favorite Long Drawings

Here I have selected three of my favorite drawings and one drawing to establish what I have learned throughout the first half of the semester. The first drawing of the model was a one hour drawing. It was very difficult to figure out how the upper body was shaped. The rib cage, the abdominals, and the hips were very difficult to draw correctly. But, I enjoyed this drawing because I was able to determine the correct shapes using the techniques learned in class. . The line value and portraying the muscles also made this drawing strong. It was a great pose to draw in the gluteal muscles, abdominal muscles, and also the Sartorus which begins at the outer hip and wraps around the thy down to the knee cap. 

The second picture I chose was a long drawing of the hip bones done from the skeleton. I enjoyed this picture because it has such strong line value. This was one point emphasized in class throughout every drawing. After I was done mapping out the bones using techniques we were taught using lines to determine that the angles of the bones were correctly drawn. 

The picture of the female model was my favorite long pose because I used all the techniques from class to map out the human body. The strongest part of this drawing is using foreshortening, the gluteal muscle, and the line value. The most successful part of actually drawing the model was the use of the spinal curves. I know that without the use of the cervical, thoracic, lumbar, and sacral curves I would have struggled with angle of the body. 

The last picture is a 15 min. gesture drawing done from the skeleton. I chose to also post this drawing because it portrays every technique learned in class to make a 2D drawing look more 3D. This drawing has good line value, good egg shape, an angled sternum, a good hole at the top of the egg, very emphasized spinal curves, and finally good curves to portrait the shape of the thy and calves. I know that using all of these techniques will help me in my future career of being an art teacher. It is important to understand more than outlines and values in successfully producing something that is 2D. In the past I drew everything using only contour lines and then filling that in with value. I believe that my drawings would have been much more successful if I would have understood then what I do now. 

The last thing that all of this has taught me has been problem solving. In earlier drawing or painting classes I have become very frustrated with angles, foreshortening, and proportions. I learned from the class to break the problem down and learn from the situation. This will defiantly make me a better artist and employee. This will make me a better artist because I will know how to break down the problems and the struggles I face. It will also make me a better artist because I will know how to rely less on contour lines and value. This will produce better more 3D artwork. I think this knowledge will also give my drawings a advantage a lot of other artists lack. Learning how to problem solve will make me a better teacher because I will know how to help my students break down there art work when they face the same problems that my work faces. I remember trying to help my peers in class when they needed to break through situations that made their work look disproportioned and flat. I would help as much as I could but I often found myself confused with the same problems. But I know now that I would know how to help them through their problems. 

This is my mannequin up to date. I had to redo the back muscles including the spinalis, longissimus, and iliocostalis muscles. I notice that those muscles that cover the back seem too small. The anterior view shows that that the large abdominal muscle does not go far enough down. But I think the strength of the upper body is the diffinate shapes and placement of the muscles. I had a hard time using the book as a reference for the mannequins. Also, when I used the internet or book sources the muscles are often covered up or confusing anyway. The pictures of the leg, gluteal, and calf muscles made me realize very critical mistakes. With these sections I often mixed up what parts of the thy muscles were anterior or posterior. As shown in the posterior view it is easy to see that I am missing muscles. I believe looking back that I have placed the posterior muscles in the anterior. The strongest part of my mannequin is the gluteal muscles, the tensor fasciae latae and the IT band. I think it can be especially appreciated in the posterior view. I think also the two muscles that make up the soleus gastrocnemius are pretty successful. If I were to do my mannequin over I would have made the muscle groupings more obvious and the craft of the clay better. I also should have used more references for the legs when I was confused. 

Favorite Gesture Drawings

I chose these three drawings not only because they were my favorite but because they best illustrate my understanding throughout the class. 

Drawing #1:

This gesture was a thirty second drawing that I believe does a good job of portraying my understanding of the pubic bones, gluteal cleft, and gluteal crease   (shown by L) Points K and J are showing my egg shape and my spinal curves. The last point M is my curvature in the thy bone. I chose this drawing because I tried to incorporate a lot of the things we learned in class all in thirty seconds. 

Drawing #2: 

This is a one minute gesture drawing that I really enjoyed. I was proud of this drawing because the egg shape in the rib has improved (point P). Point O shows the pronounced curves in the spine. I was very excited about the hip bones in the gesture because I believe the angles and shape were really successful. Point R is the last point that I thought finally successfully portrayed the shape of the thy and the calf. 

Drawing #3: 

This is a five min gesture drawing I thought was very successful. I believe it shows a lot of aspects learned in class and also my understanding of the body and drawing it. Point O is showing only one section of value in my lines. The line value is the my favorite part of the drawing. Point P, R, and S are showing my big improvements of the rib cage, the thy, and the hips. I also believe that the proportions in this drawing are also much better. The last aspect that I incorporated in this drawing were the joints. This was a point made later in class and I believe it really helps the make the gesture become more shapely. 

Past Gesture Drawings

These are the first three gesture drawings I selected to 

best describe the knowledge I gained throughout life drawing the first part of the semester. 

Drawing #1:

This drawing is a general 30 second drawing that captivated t

he general idea of a human f

orm, but as show by point A the drawing is only formed of outlines. Point B is pointing the the body as a hole and shows the lack of proportions and shape that a body nat

urally forms.

Drawing #2: 

This drawing is when we began to use center access lines. This includes line down the middle of the body which is school by points C & D. After learning about center access lines it was important to the class that we understand the body even though we are using simple lines. Point E is addressing the lack of shape to the leg.   It was important to Amy that we shape the thy and calves

with a simple

 bowed line. This helps the gesture 

become more of a human form rather than a stick person.  

Drawing #3: 

This drawing is the beginning stage of using an egg shape for the rib cage and learning the curves in the spine. Point F is addressing the large curve in the spin that shapes with our rib cage. Point H is the egg shape we started to use for the ribs. Point H is the beginning of understanding the hips and gluteal area. 

 Lastly point I is showing that I was beginning to comprehend the use of line to form the thy and calve curves. I think in this gesture I begin to understand all of the points that we are learning, but I still have a problem with the egg shaped rib. I notice that it is too oval and the body is too long for the proportions. 

Oodles of Doodles

This post is about the idea of doodling and improving drawing skills. Since the beginning of school I have doodled my way through boring lectures. It made me wonder if that drawing is what helped me draw, create, and replicate. I drew everything from the designs on my folders, the flowers on the walls, and by the time I was in middle school I was drawing full portraits of the student in front of me. A man named Mike Artell wrote a book titled "Oodles of Doodles." The idea of the book is the same as the posting. Doodling pictures has always been very enjoyable for me and I believe that it has helped my improve my skills. Even though doodling distracted me from the content of the class I'm glad I did it because art is my career now and my future. Drawing makes me happy and I'm glad I did "Oodles of Doodles."

Glutes

This is my skeleton after I have built the glute muscles. This includes the gluteus minimus, medius, and maximus. It also includes building the tensor fasciae latae. Looking at my skeleton compared to others I need to pay attention to smoothing the muscles and making them look cleaner and fuller. After I was done with my glute muscles I realized that my muscles looks to flat and I needed to build them up more. I was missing for the tuesday class so I could not meet with my group but I see big differences between my skeleton and my groups skeletons. Just from looking at their pictures I can see how to improve my skeletons shapes and muscles. I think the way I built the muscles gives off false information. 

My Inspiration and Strength

When ever I'm down about anything in life or when ever I'm stressed, I can count on two places to take me back into a state of relaxation. They are places I've known since before I can remember. When life gets stressful just the thought of being there helps me relax. These are two pictures of my favorite places. The top is the lake by my Great Grandpa's house and the second in a train trestle by the house I grew up in.  Whenever I ever I don't feel creative I just put myself at the lake or on the trestle and it's like my mind clears and I can create anything. I feel the creativity come and it's like anything becomes possible. All it takes is for me to close my eyes and put my self on the peer of the lake and put my arms out and feel the breeze surround me. Not only do these places help me relax and become creative but they describe me as a person and how I want my life. They are peaceful, calm, relaxing, easygoing, and natural. There is not one car, building, person, or power line in sight; it's all mother nature. Everybody should have a favorite place like these. It really does help a person relax and create, my two favorite places to do my two favorite things. 

Interesting Facts about our Muscles

For my extra posting this week I wanted to do something related to the muscles we have been doing in our class. So here are a few interesting facts about the human muscles. It is really fascinating what our bodies our made of, what they can do, and how they do it. After reading these facts it really makes you appreciate what are models are doing and what it must feel like  holding their bodies in positions for long periods of time. 

*The biggest muscle in the body is in the gluteal maximus

 

*You use 17 muscles to smile, and 43 to frown

*When you move in any way you use at least 200 muscles

*Your muscles are around 40-50% of your body weight

*The fibers in your muscle can support up to 1,000 x their own weight

*It takes 72 muscles to produce speech

*75% of muscle is water

* There is no exact number on how many muscles are in the body. 

(No body can come to an agreement)

     *There are 6,000,000,000,000 muscle fibers and each fiber contains 1,000 separate threads called fibrils

 

Building Muscles Without the Gym!

This is the first post of the muscle building project. I really enjoyed doing this assignment, and I also learned a lot from it. I began building the muscles a lot the spine and the neck. These were muscles such as the Cervicis, Capitis, and Thoracis. These smaller muscles are used to rotate. They work together as a group to do their jobs. They were frustrating to build because it was hard to picture how they wrap around each other and meet parts on the spine. To over come this I just tried to place the beginning and ends of the muscles to meet in the correct spot. 

The next muscles I did were part of the Iliocostalis section of the muscles. These were also frustrating to twist together correctly. These muscles are used to bend to the front, side, and backward. 

The last group of muscles I did were the abdominals. These were the easiest to do for me and more enjoyable. These muscles are used over the stomach and allow use to bend our waist, back, and stomach. 

For the next clay assignment I think I would like to take my time more and also use more sources to see how the the muscles group together. This will help me place the muscles correctly on the skeleton. This project helps me to figure out the size of the muscles and how the muscles are shaped. When I question the size or relationships of back muscles on the model I can think back to skeleton and relate it back to my drawings. 

The top drawing is from the first class. There is a very big difference between my three drawings and I can see my progress very well. In the first drawing I was very worried about outlines and details. Notice I include hair, muscles, outlines, toes, fingers ext. It wasn't until the second class that I start the center axis of the figure. I really enjoy the idea behind the center axis points because it helped with with the angle of the body parts. I also tried to include line variation and line value in the second one. I did have some variation in the first drawing but there was no reason or system to it. My last drawing includes the spine curvature, line variation, and center axis lines. I like the way we went about learning the ways to accomplish the different techniques. My drawings went from what I've always done, to starting from scratch, and then now building it back up again. I learned a lot in the last couple classes, and I think you can definitely see the changes in my drawings. 

This last painting was done my freshman year of college. I chose this one because it's of my nephew, and I believe a did a good job of making it actually look like him. I enjoy the challenge of doing people I know, because it pushes me to do better in my projects. 

This is another portrait I did that was inspired a a lot by a model that I found in a magazine. The stare in her eyes was so striking I wanted to put it down on paper myself. I found a lot of people really enjoyed this drawing also. I believe it's for the same reason. This is also one of my older drawing. I chose older drawings, because my college projects were less enjoyable for me to do. I got to choose more of the guidelines in these drawings so there were no real boundaries. 

This drawing was done in high school. I entered it in a contest my junior year, and I won first place with it.

it is one of my favorite drawings that I've ever done, because this is really the first portrait that I ever completed. 

It's faded a lot now, but I still enjoy it.