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.