Time for the Shoulders

This week’s lesson focused on adding the shoulders to our drawings. I discovered that adding the shoulders was rather difficult at first in our gesture drawings. I found myself struggling just to get to the shoulders in our quicker sketches.  Which makes me realize I still need to quicken my pace in my gesture drawings. If I can do this maybe I can actually get my shoulder blades in more easily before in less then two minutes. I do think things are getting better with my gesture drawings though. I noticed that I wasn’t getting stumped on some of the things I was before spring break. Which is a good sign.

Some of the things I found difficult about the shoulders in even the longer poses were seeing such things as the shoulder blades. If the light didn’t hit them just right or the arm was in a position that didn’t make them stick out they were actually rather difficult to find. So in my longer pose I kind of struggled with that but Amy helped me find where they should be. So I think that helped me visualize what I should be looking for. Hopefully with time I will be able to just know where they should be even if I can’t see them very good.

So for this week I decided I would post picture of images I found online dealing with the shoulder. I think by seeing more of these images it will help me when I return to class on Tuesday. 

Foot Week & Spring Break!

Hi again!

Wow, I cannot believe that we are already done with spring break! I think I was certainly at that point of the semester where I needed a little time off from school. It was also nice to be home for more then a few days so that I could spend sometime with my family. I also enjoyed the beautiful weather and found myself completely inspired by surrounding so I took MANY pictures.

As for class before spring break we started learning to draw the foot. I found the foot to be challenging but at the same time I really enjoy drawing feet. I oddly I found that drawing the toes and the bottom side of the foot were my favorite. I guess when it comes to drawing the foot I think it really has its own character. For instance no toe is the same. Some toes are bent while others are straight and some are even hiding behind other toes. I think its is also interesting to think of all the bones and muscles that are in such a small area that together create what we see as the foot. I also think that learning about these bones and muscles really helped me to visualize what I needed to be looking for as I started drawing the foot on this first day. 

Until Next Week, 

Ashley

Mid Semester ALREADY!!!!

Hey Everyone,

Look at the link here to see my Mid semester Portfolio

I find It is so hard to believe that we are already at the mid point in the semester. In this time though i can tell that i have a learned a lot and continue to do so. There is a HUGE difference between my first drawings in this class and the ones from this week.

Anterior View of Eduardo

This weeks 1 Hour Pose

This class has taught me to think about how to draw in new ways. Instead of focusing on contrast, line, and shadow this class is teaching me to represent things with just lines and also using lines to form a 3 dimensional space, as we do in our contour drawings. I also find myself discovering that our mannequins help us to learn how to draw the body as well. The mannequins help me to visualize the certain muscles that can be seen on the outside of the body. I find that every week is a wonderful challenge as there is a new form to learn and represent as we make our way around the body.

Last weeks 1 hour pose

Over the last couple of weeks i have discovered that i find myself most comfortable taking on the longer poses. I have always been one that is patient with my work so i find that the short gesture drawing are a challenge to me. However i see how important the gesture drawings are in order to become more aware and precise at drawing the land marks we are looking for such as the pelvic points. So even though i am most comfortable with taking my time i think the short poses really help as i work my way farther along in drawing the body.



I am truly excited to learn how to properly draw the rest of the body. I also can't wait to be able to look at the progress at the end of the semester. Its amazing the change that i have already seen!

Week 5 time to recap and move forward

Note of the
Frontal view of Pelvis

As a result of a short week last week this week started off recapping some of the things we learned. Which was really good in my case as i couldn't exactly remember how to draw some of the angles of the pelvis. Fortunately i think i'm starting to get it now. The area i was having most difficulty with was understanding how to draw the front view of the pelvis. However now i understand which points i need to look for and things are looking considerable better.

Side View

This week we also worked on adding the femur to our drawings. For my gesture drawings i thing i need to learn to quicken my pace as i sometimes fail to get to this part of the drawing. However we also worked on a longer pose this week. We had an hour long pose and which i really like having the opportunity to do so because it really allowed me to study the things that i don't really get the opportunity to do so in my gesture drawings. One thing that i found difficult with the hour long pose was that after break the some of the things shifted in my picture so i found myself attempting to fix these things longer then i probably should have.
Well, hopefully next week progression will only continue and i can learn to quicken my pace in the gesture drawings. 

Back view

Week 4 was a short week but full of support for our educators.

This week was a short week for us. With the happenings in Wisconsin we took some time out of our class period to go support our public workers, which include our teachers. They put so much time and effort into making sure that we receive a good education that I am so glad that we were given the opportunity to make our voice heard for them. I can only hope that the future of education in Wisconsin is protected and that our Governor reconsiders what he is asking of this select group of people.

In life drawing this week we did do some drawing allowing us to add onto our concepts we have already learned. The week we added on our pelvic region and hips. We discovered how this part of the body looks from each angle.  Personally I think I need to work on this a little more. We didn’t get to spend a lot of time on this region so I think being able to study it more will help me understand the curves of this area from each angle you look at it. 

Can it really be week 3?

Hello again!

Wow, can it really be the end of week 3 already? This is also an exciting thought though since this means that there is also a great deal of progression that is coming along. In life drawing this week we continued to build upon our knowledge of the body with our gesture drawings, contour drawings, as well as learning about the muscles through our sculptures.

Contour Drawing

Gesture Drawing
including the ribcage

I am still learning so much from this class and i can certainly see the progressions from each week but, i still have a long ways to go in my studies of the body. In the drawing aspect of this weeks class we brought into play the rib cage. In our drawings the rib cages is the egg like shape that is found towards the upper area of the vertebrate by the neck. We also worked on more contour drawings which i felt went considerably better this time. I am starting to become more aware of how these kinds of drawings work and i can't wait to see how they progress with the semester. In general i think having the new knowledge of the ribcage this week has helped to develop the idea of space in all of the drawings this week.

Eduardo's new Muscles!

Abs!

Then there is Eduardo. This week he is starting to look more and more human like. Our homework from the week had us studying over the muscles in the abs, glutes, and hips. As the modeling part of our class continues i am discovering that sometimes it is difficult for me to really grasp what the muscles look like. However when I finally get it right it is highly rewarding and i find it to be another tool that will really tie into visualizing what I also see on the outside of the body.

Well i guess that was week 3, 

Ashley

Week 2 and it ends with a little green and yellow.

Hello again,

First off I just have to say GO PACKERS! I'm sure by now you know that they have won the super bowl. So, being a Wisconsin girl I'm pretty thrilled about the victory tonight. 

Beginning to Build Eduardo's muscles. 

Now, as for this past week in life drawing we learned several things. This week we broke down our drawings into specific areas of the body. In this process we continued to work on our contour drawings but this time we only worked on creating parts of the spine. Something important we could take from this lesson is that everything starts here.  Other things we learned were that some of the curves in the spine such as the primary curves, which include the thoracic and sacral, stay the same. Where as such parts of the spine as the cervical & lumbar counter balance the primary curves depending on what the model is doing.

Muscle Progression

We also starting learning about muscles and were given our first assignment to start building some of the muscles in our body. This week we started to focus on the Spinal erectors. So far my skeleton, Eduardo, has only made it into the first part of the assignment. However, I can already tell that building these muscles will help to improve my understanding of the body as a whole. And of course having a better understanding of the body will also allow me to hopefully be able to draw it better since it will allow me to see things on another level.

- Ashley