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Final Post

I am typing this post outside of the drawing room with twenty minutes to go until our final. Nothing like saving things for the last minute.
I am fairly happy with my final shell drawing. I really wanted to use brown ink, rather than black, but every store I checked was sold out or only had black. I attempted to use leftover coffee grounds but that didn't work either, so I pulled out my old black ink. I did end up liking the drama that the black added to the shell. I may go over some areas with a darker black ink, as it lightened more than I wanted it to as it dried. I really want there to be more contrast between the bottom wash below the shell and the actual shell. I worked really really hard to get the right shape of the shell, which I changed gradually over the course of a few days. It helped that I gave myself extra time because I was able to work for a bit, take a break and come back and look with fresh eyes, which allowed my to see what was wrong with it. I was a bit scared to add the ink wash, but finally was able to loosen up with the ink.
As for the last drawing in class, the full body pose, I am less than happy with. If you cover up the shrunken head it is not so bad I guess. I really wish we would have had more than one class period to work on the entire body. Maybe I can convince my husband to pose for me one of these days so I can try that again.
I feel like I have learned an entirely new was of looking at and drawing people and objects. I love drawing portraits and will definitely use what we have learned to make those better and more three-dimensional on paper. I don't feel like I actually stopped drawing sketchy, although I did try. I guess that is just the way that I draw and I can continue to try to work on that. Overall I am happy that I took this class and hope to use the new techniques that I have learned in the future.

Large shell drawing

My third shell drawing shows major improvement since my first. I thought I would be nervous about the large size of the paper, but since this was the third I ended up doing okay with using the space. I had a lack of wall space and worked on the floor, which seemed okay. When I use the bigger sheet for the final shell I will have to clear some wall space off so that my perspective is not distorted on the paper.
I worked a lot harder to focus on the shape of the shell rather than drawing half-circles over and over to show the shape. I was finally able to find the angles in the curves, and I really worked hard on creating a wrap-around effect. I also incorporated the use of atmospheric perspective, darkening the tip that is closest and gradually getting lighter as the shell moved back into space. The group who critiqued me said that they could see some movement and that the variation of line width was helpful. They also noticed that I tried hard to make the lines wrap around the shell. They suggested that I work on the inside area of the shell, giving it an edge and adjusting the angle of my lines to show that it curves out and down. Overall I think this drawing is much better than my first and second cross contour shell.

Final before the Final

Yikes...It is time for my final post yet I have failed to update my blog since midterm. So I am going to take a long look back into the last few weeks and try to summarize those classes. I believe I need to begin with the feet.
I have a thing about feet. I think they are kinda gross and I don't even like mine being touched, so to sit and stare at another person's foot was a big thing for me. I do feel like I got a pretty successful foot drawing out of the experience, so that was good. It was hard at first to draw the structure of the foot from many different angles, because sometimes I had to make up what I was told was there but couldn't see. I think learning the internal structure of the feet was probably the most important because the feet and hands are pretty complex.
The field trip to the cities was a good time. I was a little weirded out at first but once I got over that I really enjoyed seeing all the separate systems that make up our bodies. The nervous system was insane to see, as well as all the blood vessels that made up the shape of whatever body part they were taken from. It was really nice to be able to go to the museum with no itinerary. I enjoyed being able to roam around and just look at whatever caught my eye. I am pretty much in love with the Japanese art area, especially one sculpture in particular (the clay spiral form). I also spent a lot of time looking at the Josef Sudek and Czech Photography exhibit.
And now I move on to skulls, the eyes and the nose. I was happy with my skull drawings, I feel like they were pretty accurate to the model that I had drawn from. It was helpful to actually be told that the back of the skull were actually bigger than the face, I honestly think I may have overlooked it if I was not actually told to watch for that. As for the eyes, I have always drawn faces from pictures and thought my eyes were the best part of all my drawings, and now I have the knowledge to make them even better by showing structure to help them seem less flat. I think the thing I will remember most about noses is to show the front and side plane, and to add that roundness to the end of the nose.