Skull

This week we finally learned about the skull and I found all of it so interesting. I think this week has been my favorite, mainly because I love drawing faces and so all the information was intriguing. The skull is split into two parts the cranium and the face. If you draw an imaginary line between the ear hole and the bridge of the nose, that is where your cranium and face split. The cranium is 2/3 and the face is 1/3 of the skull. This is a common misunderstanding when drawing. We tend to think the cranium is smaller than it actually is and then it looks funny in our drawings.

We also discussed the order that works best for drawing a face. You should start with the glabella, which is between your nose and eyebrow. This shows you where the eyes go and the nose. Then draw the planes of the nose and the cheekbones. This helps form the face and then you want to work on the planes. You face has front and side planes, which start in the middle of the brow and go to the side of the cheek. Your eye is actually in the middle of both the planes. WEIRD. Then draw the zygomatic cheek and arch and the upper jaw. Note that your cheeks are way wider than your upper jaw. Then move down to the lower jaw. The front plane of your jaws is the width of your nose.

We also got to talk with Amy about our clay manikins and it sounds like we are almost done. We might have a few muscles to put in the neck; otherwise we are just revising our muscles. This is a nice feeling to be almost finished with that.

Here is my favorite skull drawing…

Hand

This week we finally had two days of class! I don’t think we have had both days of class for about three weeks, so we got a lot of drawing time in. We have continued to learn about the arm and today we learned about the hand. Your hand and your feet are very similar with the same type of bones. Your feet have tarsal bones and your hand has carpal bones. The carpal bones are only about a fifth of your hand and are basically your wrist bones. Your hand also has an arch just like your foot. Your thumb has three bones where the other ones have four. The really interesting thing that I learned though was that your pointer fingers first knuckle is the highest, but the middle fingers bone towards the next knuckle is longer so the middle finger is the tallest. (If that makes sense).

Today we learned about the hand and then we had all of class to do two drawings. One hand from the skeleton and one from the model, each being an hour long pose. I really loved drawing from the skeleton, it seemed to come easier to me and it was the first time I got to draw from it. I sort of wish that we had the option to draw from it earlier on in the class and I am hoping we will get another chance to draw from it.

For our clay models we are almost done! It is sort of hard to believe, but then again class is starting to wind down. (Which that is hard to believe too!) We are finishing up the forearm and hand muscles and then there are a few more neck muscles to do. On Tuesday Amy is going to look at the clay models and I hope mine isn’t really off. 

Arm

This week we learned about the arm and it is always interesting to me when you learn something new about the human body. To me, I feel like we all should know about it because it is our body but we don’t really know how complex and interesting it is. This is what I learned…

The humorous bone is connected to your shoulder and your elbow. There are bicep muscles, which are on the top or front of your arm and tricep muscle, which are on the back. From your elbow you then have two bones that go down to your wrist which are the Ulna and the Radius (Forearm bones). This is where I found things interesting because I never knew this before. The Ulna bone is connected to the main part of the elbow and goes down to your pinky (mainly owning the elbow). The Radius goes from the elbow down to your thumb and owns the wrist.

When your hands are supine, which means palms up, your forearm bones are parallel. When your hands are prone or palms down, your forearm bones are crossed. That is why drawing arms can be so difficult.

This weekend we are putting the forearm muscles on our manikins so I am not quite sure what they are or how they look, but I am excited we are almost done with learning the different parts so we can draw the whole figure. After the arm we move to the hands and then the head and I am most excited to learn about the skull. To me the skull is the most interesting and I think I am really going to like learning about it. I also have found it odd that we haven’t really drawn heads in class yet and it will be really nice to have a head on our figures. 

This week we continued to work on shoulder muscles and how to draw the collarbone. It has still be hard for me to see it on the models I think maybe because it moves, at least in the back and if you have a bad angle on it, it is hard to draw. Making the collarbone look like it is going back into space instead of just a flat line can be hard to come across.

Last Thursday was a great day for me as far as drawing. Something I am not in the mood to draw and you can totally tell when you look at my drawings. But on Thursday I was really in the zone and I feel like I had a lot of pictures to take for good drawings.

With the manikin we have been adding a lot of muscles and its been a challenge to keep up. When I talked with Amy about mine there were a lot of muscles to change. I still have to do that this weekend along with new muscles for triceps and biceps. I also realized that I am seriously running out of clay. My muscles must be way bigger than the person who had my manikin previous. Luckily Amy gave me more clay but it is YELLOW! So my manikin is all going to be red and the arm is going to be yellow.

Next week we only have one class because of advisement day and I am so excited to have the day off so I can catch up on homework. Maybe then I won’t feel so stressed out.

Here are a few drawings from this week. What do you guys think? 

Shoulders

Well Spring Break is officially over and we are back to hard work at school.

This week we have been learning about the shoulders and collar bone. I’m not going to lie I had a really hard time finding the collarbone when I was drawing. Some people and angles make it really hard to see.

On Tuesday we had a lecture and then were able draw, which was nice to get more practice in. On Thursday we didn’t have scheduled class, but we did have a lot of muscles to do. I think for this week we had a total of 17 muscles to add to our manikins. I am hoping that my manikin isn’t too messed up because I really wasn’t sure where a lot of the muscles were supposed to go. Hopefully they are proportioned and in the right place.

On a side note I still find the feet very interesting and I never knew that the big toe and the next two are connected to your anklebone and the last two toes are connected to the heel. That is why you have an arch in your foot. I couldn’t believe I never knew that.

I think I am still having a hard time with my thickness and weight control. Showing in my drawing, which muscles come out in front and which ones go off in the distance, is hard for me. Part of me just doesn’t understand how to figure out which lines to darken and which ones not to. And how do you thicken lines without ruining your form. I guess the answer would be to do it in a subtle way, but easier said than done.

I would love any feedback on my gesture drawing because short poses are hard for me to capture the movement and overall pose of the model.

Spring Break!

This week felt so long because Spring Break is about to start! I am very excited because I am actually going somewhere this time and normally I don't. So it has been hard to focus this past week, but luckily I made it and leaving tomorrow for Florida!

This week we worked on our clay models during class on Tuesday. I am glad we had a lot of time to work because I was able to fix a bunch of things. I believe we are now done with the legs and feet muscles on our model.

Today we drew all day and focused on the feet. They are so hard to draw!! I don't really like drawing feet. I seemed to do well with the toes, but the ankle is the tricky part for me. Either way I was very fascinated by the way the bones are in the foot. It makes so much more sense why we have an arch on the top of or foot and the way our toes work. 

The main comments from my midterm review to work on were line weight and control.

Have a great spring break everyone!

Midterm Post

http://www.flickr.com/photos/60175990@N06/sets/

We are about half way done with Life Drawing class and so far I have learned so much. I have always loved drawing people and now I have the tools to really get the proportions and accuracy down.

I would say that I am definitely a hands on person, but I have thoroughly enjoyed the lecture part of the class too. It has been so interesting for me to learn about human form with the different bones and muscles. Every week we have to build more muscles out of clay and put them on a plastic model. As much as I have learned from it, I would still say it is my least favorite part. The clay muscles get to small or it is confusing because you don’t know which muscles sit next to or over lap others.

I have enjoyed all the drawing we have gotten to do and I would say my favorite ones are the longer poses. I don’t do very well with 30-second drawings. I get all flustered and feel like I need to draw the whole body instead of main points and then the whole thing gets out of control.

So far we have mainly learned how to draw the spine, pelvis, and legs. We are working on the leg muscles on our clay model and just had a lecture on knees. I love the shortcuts we have learned, like drawing an egg for the ribs, it really has helped with proportions and you will notice on all the drawings. Knowing how large things are, like the sacrum is one-third the width of the pelvis. You will see that in drawing 7 and drawing 1. Such good information I would have never known.

I would say my biggest struggles are foreshortening, proportion, and if the body is twisting. I know more practice would help, but I just cannot figure out how to really get the pose on paper.