Final: flickr

Here's the address for my flickr account, where you can find more drawings and larger photos of the ones in the Final post:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28219158@N02/

Final Thoughts

Gesture Drawing, 5-minute pose, 4/19/09

Even though I have enjoyed drawing people for some time, there has always been a sort of trepidation when I try to depict someone in particular.  My ability to draw people was based totally on my ability to recreate what I’m looking at, copy it down on paper.  Now, I can honestly say that I’m able to draw people based on knowledge of the human form, and a deeper understanding of the human body.   Studying the bones and muscles has been so helpful, especially in my long drawings.  It is much easier to find the correct proportions and create a realistic drawing when I can build the drawing from the underlying structures of the bones and muscles, and then add on information I observe.  Learning the different anatomical landmarks has changed the way I view the body:  instead of being an intimidating, yet familiar, form full of foreshortening and other artistic challenges, I can break it down into planes and contour lines.  I feel much more confident in my ability to draw the figure now than I was at the beginning of class.   

Clay Model: posterior, lateral, and anterior views 5/11/09

Working with the clay and manikin was helpful, but sometimes frustrating.  I had a hard time translating the size of the muscle in the book to the size it should be on my manikin, so some of his muscle systems are not as cohesive as I would like them to be.  I wanted to show each individual muscle, but they also need to fit together- sometimes it felt like one big jigsaw puzzle I was trying to piece together.   

Early Cross Contour, knee

Cross Contour, femur, 4/09

Cross contour drawings was something we touched on in my previous drawing classes, but only briefly.  You can see in the images above that my understanding of this technique has grown a lot over the semester.  I love being able to create that sense of space and dimension without using shading, and I’m excited to have a new tool for drawing.  I find the simplicity of line drawings entirely beautiful, and when you combine understanding of cross contours to careful attention to line quality and variation, it can yield outstanding results.  

Study of the Skull, 3/4 view, 4/27/09

Study of Shoulder Region, 4/19/09

These two long drawings are good examples of everything I mentioned above.  I am able to create a sense of dimension and space by suing cross contours and line variation.   Figuring out the understructure in the shoulder study left a nice “history” of lighter lines that (I think) adds character and realism to the drawing.   The skull study is an especially good example of atmospheric perspective, using darker lines to accentuate the areas of the form closest to you, leaving farther areas lighter, again creating that sense of space. 

            Overall, I’m really excited about the things we learned this semester.  I still want to continue working on recognition of those anatomical landmarks, correct proportions (I tend to still make my pelvis too far from my ribcage and my legs too short), and combining all this knowledge when doing longer drawings.  I also think it would be helpful to become even more familiar with the bones and muscles.  Since we were only able to spend a few periods on each area, I hope to go back and really focus in and become comfortable with, and knowledgeable of, each part of the form.