It's more than just a fruit in a box.

 Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60148576@N04/

This semester flew by for me. Hah I wonder how many people will start out their blogs similarly? Seems to be a common thought lately. But anyways, life drawing was one of those classes that probably changed my perception of the world as an artist the most this semester. I've decided to make life drawing my concentration (a huge commitment and journey I'm extremely excited to begin starting with life drawing 2 next semester). This has changed my thought process on still lives completely. Back in my earlier drawing classes I hated still lives, but now I'm excited by the idea. Even fruit and box still lives seem to have more life to me now.

I learned so many things about the body that have actually helped in my other art classes this semester, particularly painting. I learned about proportions, especially the head these past few weeks. My strengths are in my mark making. I feel as though I do expressive line work and it shows through my drawings. I also think I've improved a lot of proportions like I previously said. I've learned great things about measuring and drawing in planes to make sure everything matches up. My weaknesses lie in one of my strengths. Because I have such expressive mark making, I often draw dark and harsh from the beginning and it is difficult for me to later add in atmospheric perspective. I also am sometimes hasty and will miss tiny details that would have improved my drawing very much if I slowed down and took more time to observe.

The mannequin was a big part of my drawings earlier in the semester when we were learning about the glutes, art muscles and land marks like that. Recently, I haven't thought about the mannequin much other than the standard reminder here and there. But early on, I was constantly aware that I wanted my drawings to embody parts of my mannequin and vice versa. This course meant a lot to me and I'm really glad I took it early on and was able to find what I want to focus on throughout college. It won't have much of an effect on my future career, but this is just for me because I enjoy it the most out of any other studio class. I hope everyone else enjoyed this class as much as I have and have a great summer!

Grandma, what large cranium you have!

Yayyy its almost finals week!!! Which means we're almost all done!! Which means I get to beg people to hire me until some poor sucker actually does and I get to slave away for them all summer!! Ha, that was a little sarcasm, but I really am looking forward to finals week because it shouldn't be too difficult for me other than the fact that i have to stay here until WEDNESDAY at FOUR pm! Gahhhh i'll be the only person left at Stout.

So, life drawing was focused around our model's heads this week. I chose to draw Rob, and I think it turned out pretty decent. I wish Wednesday I would have drawn Annie because I felt like I was basically done on Monday with Rob's. So Wednesday I didn't do much but look at it and draw a line here or there. Friday (which I'm still in class as I'm writing this) we're going to talk to Amy about our muscles and do a long drawing of Rob. I'm really really glad Amy is looking at our muscles one last time because I know some of my stuff is definitely off. When we did the gesture drawings of Rob it was the weirdest thing ever. I seriously felt like I hadn't drawn a gesture in months. It probably has been a couple weeks, but still. Soooo awkward and stiff at first. I can't imagine how horrible I'll be in the Fall.

I'm excited/nervous to draw myself. I'm going to try to get it done this weekend because I shouldn't be too stressed out. I hope it turns out alright. Every other project (I've only had like two) where I needed to draw from a mirror I usually caved and just drew from a picture and my professor could always tell which wasn't surprising but whatever. BUT this time, I am determined to draw myself in real time. I'm at a dilemma though, I want to look halfway decent, because ya know this drawing could be around for the entirety of my life if I do it on nice paper, but when I draw I'm typically scrubbin' it in sweats with my hair messily pulled back. We'll see what I do... MAYBE I'll draw my head shape/facial features with my hair pulled back, then at the end put my hair down and make it look all nice and polished. Sorry, you probably don't really care, this is just my thought process.

Oh, and the title of this blog, well hopefully you figured it out. But if you didn't, its just me making a lame joke at how we were all kind of surprised by how big people's heads are and it just made me think of the Big Bad Wolf. Get it?

I'm All Ears

So, this week we just had class Wednesday and Friday. We took a lot of time to lecture, which was kind of a bummer but I think needed to happen because we were approaching something completely different. Eyes, mouths, noses, and ears are nothing like anything else we've learned so far. There really isn't much muscle or bone going on here, so it was new 'squishy' material. Sorry if that was too gross of an adjective haha.

But anyways, life drawing wasn't my biggest focus this week because I really didn't feel like I spent enough time drawing, I instead was slaving over an art history paper that I'm decently proud of which is always nice. We only really got to practice everything once, which kind of was a bummer because I didn't get around to working on any drawings this weekend. This week though Ii'm pretty sure we're just continuing those four things so I think that I'll get a better understanding. I wouldn't mind doing some quick drawings. I think they'd be hard, but probably a good way to get used to drawing new things.

My picture this week is of Hana's ear. I started out trying to do what Amy said with the whole make the dark parts of the ear lighter so it looks like they're going farther back but it just looked weird to me so I stopped and drew how I usually draw. I'm typically a 'dark' drawer. I don't like doing light lines and as soon as I remember to do light lines they're the same darkness as my erase marks so it just throws me off completely. Looking at the drawing now I wish I would have explored more crosshatching like in the right corner. Maybe next time I'll try that a little more.