Final Portfolio

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This semester I have learned so much about life drawing. I never really understood that knowing the muscles in the body and drawing them in really helps make it look realistic. Along with learning the muscles, knowing how the bones are placed also is a huge help. Along with anatomy, I learned how to draw contour lines. I never really was taught how to use them, and they really help give the form a third dimensional feel and help the viewer know what is going on.

My strengths in drawing would be the head. I have more practice with drawing the head that when we started learning about it, it seemed pretty easy. I also felt like I did better on the skeleton drawings verse drawing from the model. I would say my weaknesses are the gesture drawings. I am a slow drawing and it is hard to draw the whole body in thirty seconds. My gesture drawings don’t seem to look good until I have a few minutes to draw it. I also think line variation could improve, and since midterm I feel like I have gotten better with that.

The manikin was a helpful tool during the class. I liked that when I was drawing from the model, I could look at my manikin for reference to know how the muscles are laid out. I thought the books were confusing because they didn’t relate the muscle you were working on with surrounding muscles, but I really appreciate Amy coming around and helping tweak them. That definitely helped, I think my manikin would have been really off if she didn’t come around and show us.

There are quite a few things I will be taking away from the class. First, understanding the anatomy better makes everything easier. Second, how to make your forms three-dimensional by using contour lines and adding muscles. And also, getting better at gesture drawings, line control, and accurate proportions.

Putting Everything Together

We are getting down to the final days of Life Drawing. It is definitely bittersweet for me because I love the class but I am so ready for this semester to be over. This semester I am graduating so I am counting down the days. I really wish that I had taken this class earlier because I would have taken life drawing two, but I could never get into this class. Either way, I’m glad I took this class because I have learned so much!

This week on Tuesday I finished my manikin, which is a great feeling. I spent the three-hour class refining and smoothing it and had a few muscles to fix.

This week we didn’t learn anything new because we have gone over all the parts. We now are putting it all together. So today we drew gestures, and had a long pose. I looked through my favorite drawing of this semester and realized I don’t have many long poses that I like. So I really have to do my best with the next few days. It has been nice to draw the whole body and put everything we have learned together. I seem to like drawing parts of the body better than the whole body at one time. Probably because it is easier to focus on one section, then you don’t have to worry so much about proportions for every part.

Please look at my drawing. I’m not sure what I think of it, I had a really hard time with the leg connecting to the side/back. Also, are we suppose to do shading or is this what Amy is looking for?

face

This week in life drawing we continued studying the cranium. Instead of working with the skeleton, we drew from the models. I missed class on Tuesday, but I really enjoyed a long study of the face today. This has been my favorite section we’ve studied so far. I have been waiting to learn about the head and how to draw the face. I have learned so much and I am bummed I missed Tuesday’s class because I know Amy gave great tips on how to draw the face that I missed. So anyone who was there and has great tips for me, I would love to hear them! We did learn about the ear today and a little bit about the neck. The ear was interesting because I didn’t realize there were so many parts. Yes, the ear is weird, but every little curve in the ear has a name! Who names all these things, I mean lets be serious.

I’m not going to lie; I haven’t even looked or touched my manikin in weeks. I’m glad next Tuesday we will have time to fix them and get feedback. I’m hoping mine isn’t too far off from what the real muscles look like. Also, we found out today that we will need to do a self-portrait and they are due for our evaluation time slot. I’m hoping it isn’t going to be hard because if I’m looking in the mirror while drawing myself, wont I be moving my face too much. I’ll never have the same position. Maybe I’m thinking about it too much, but it sounds like it will be hard. I’ve done self-portraits from drawings before and they never turn out. I think because we all have an idea on what we look like or what we want to look like that our brains trick us and it comes out in our drawings. Anyways, my point is good luck to all of you. 

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

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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.

Week 5

In life drawing this week we have been working on our clay model. For Thursday we needed to do the adductor muscles, which are on the inside of your leg. And for next Tuesday we need to build the hamstrings, which are on the back of your leg. So far they seem pretty easy to make, most of them are just long strands. It is starting to get hard because of all the clay overlapping. Needless to say we were focused on the legs this week.

During the lectures we were taught how the legs are attached to the body and how to start drawing them. So that is what we did, we drew. We had a lot of practice this week with drawing and were focused on drawing the centerline and then the rib cage by drawing the egg shape. Then you want to draw the pelvis bone with the sacrum. The sacrum should be a third of the width, which is in between the pelvis bone. Then you start adding the legs.

I was amazed to see now that we are adding more parts how proportioned everything seems to look. It was always hard for me get things proportioned and now it seems so easy.

Also this week we had our first “long-drawing.” It was an hour and that was my favorite part of the week. I seem to draw slowly so the thirty-second poses are always hard for me. I loved being able to draw one pose for an extended period of time because we really haven’t had long poses in that class yet.

I am posting my “long-drawing” and I would love to get feedback. Amy didn’t get a chance to come around and look at mine, so it would be nice to get some critiques. Anything and everything would be helpful. 

Class or No class...

Wow! This week has been gorgeous! February and it’s over 50 degrees. That is unheard of. I love it! I am not a winter person; I love warm weather so much more!

Besides the weather being so weird, so was school. I only have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and this week all my Tuesday classes were cancelled. On Thursday I only had 45 minutes of Life Drawing and my other class was cancelled. Talk about a weird week for classes. Although I didn’t mind, I was able to get ahead in some homework and breathe for two seconds.

Since we only had one hour of class instead of six this week, we didn’t get a lot of time to draw and practice. Today was a little rushed but we did get some drawings in.

We are working this weekend on the quad muscles and putting them on our clay models. When I worked on the model, the muscles were pretty easy to make. Mainly long strips of clay. Unless I completely did it wrong, it didn’t take too much time.

We learned briefly how to draw under the ribs. For me it seemed confusing because I couldn’t really see or understand what we were drawing, but I’m sure more practice will help.

This week I have noticed that I look at people differently now. I can look at someone and sort of map out the best way to draw them. I look at their form and the angle and it seems like I have a new pair of eyes. I never really noticed how people were standing or walking before. I guess I shouldn’t say that, I have noticed peoples posture before, but I couldn’t tell you the best way to draw it, or why things were angled the way they were. 

Week 3

Week 3 of Life Drawing class is coming to an end. I am starting to get back into the groove of drawing for a long period of time and drawing from real life instead of a picture. This week has been my favorite so far with drawing and I am so excited about all the tricks we are learning for proportioning the body.

Last week we looked at the spine and back muscles and this week we are looking at the front. We are learning about the ribcage and the sternum. Again, the lectures have been very interesting for me. I love learning about how everything is placed…bones and muscles.

Apparently when you are drawing the human form the main thing that helps proportion everything is the rib cage. First you want to draw a line down the center of the person…from the neck to the belly button. Where your neck meets your body down to the bottom of the rib cage is the next place you want to look. There you will draw an egg shaped form, the small top part of the egg is where the neck is. This helps your human form come out to be way more accurate.

Again, we are working on our clay models. It has been hard to get the clay small enough to be accurate. I have found out on multiple occasions that it is easy to make the clay to bulky and then the body just looks totally off balanced. But the small pieces of the clay are hard to maneuver and stick to the model without messing up other muscles already attached to the model. We have the back muscles, abdominal muscles, and gluteus muscles done.

Attached is my favorite drawing from this week. Any thoughts on things I should work on is much appreciated. 

Assignment 1

This week in class we have been learning mostly about the spine. The lectures in the class are ironically so far my favorite part of class. I find it very interesting to learn about the human body and the different bones and muscles since it has been so long.  

Also this week we got our clay models and received our first homework assignment. The picture I am uploading with this blog is my progression. I am worried I am very off with my positioning and sizing of the clay that represent the muscles in the body. The pictures in the book have been really hard to tell where they relate with the other muscles and it is hard to tell how large or small to really make them. Either way I plan to bring it to class on Tuesday and hopefully get some good feedback.

Besides the lectures and the clay model we have been practicing drawing in class, like any drawing class would. It has been awhile for me, so these first few weeks have been interesting. I am not used to drawing for such long periods of time and I when I do draw it tends to be more from pictures. So getting used to drawing forms in front of me will be challenging. I have found it difficult to find the muscles and bones on our model. I feel like I don’t really know what I’m looking for. I’m sure with more practice I will be able to see the muscles better, especially when this clay model will be staring me in the face. I think it will be hard not to know the muscles.

Either way I am excited for class on Tuesday and look forward to learning more. If anyone has feedback on my clay model, please let me know.

Introduction

Hi, my name is Allie Veil. I am a senior at UW Stout and will be graduating this May. My major is in Fine Art with a concentration of Graphic Design.

I didn’t know I could draw until the end of my senior year in high school. It is exciting to know how much I have learned in just a few years and it will only get better. Now I am about to graduate and I feel like I am just starting to grasp drawing and designing.

Everyone likes to ask me what my plans are after graduation and like the typical twenty one year old I say I have no idea. I love to draw and love designing and that is why I am in this program, but as far as what I want to do with it is still undecided.

Currently I am working at a church as an office assistant and because they know I am creative they tend to give me all the “fun” projects. So lucky for me a lot of my design work is being put to use.

I have also done freelance work for smaller companies, helping with logos, brand identity, and advertisements. Basically just trying to get my foot in the door and experience under my belt.

Besides freelance work and the office assistant job I have also been a custom framer. It was always fun to see art come in and we did get to see interesting stuff. But I don’t want to frame art pieces, I want to make them.

As an artist I am really excited for this class because my favorite thing to draw is the human form. I think not only will it help me understand the human body; it will also help me be a better drawer.