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.  

Walker Art Center Reflections

Anselm Kiefer, Emanation, 1984-86

We recently took a field trip to St. Paul to visit the Science Museum and the Walker Art Center.  I've been to the Walker before, and one room contains my three favorite pieces:

Anselm Kiefer, Emanation (above)

Julie Mehretu, Transcending: The New International

Charles Ray, Unpainted Sculpture

So when asked to reflect on a piece that grabbed our attention, I immediately knew I needed to write about one of these three pieces, and I've settled on Kiefer's Emanation.  

This piece is absolutely massive in scale- maybe twenty feet tall by 8 or 9 feet wide?  I love that I can't take it all in with a single gaze- that I have to crane my neck, tip my head back to see the top, and only standing clear across the expansive room can I see the entire piece at once.

The texture is fantastic- it is anything but flat.  Layers, so many layers! I just want to touch it, to feel the rough, the jagged, the smooth: feel the undulations in the application of paint.  The color at first seems monochromatic, with different shades and tones of grey- deep, chalky, charcoal- but then I'm drawn to the dirty ivory across the upper portion of the piece.

It reminds me of old pictures of atom bombs: the central plume, foreboding colors: a dark black at the top and deeper colors with white highlights like capped waves of an angry sea across the bottom.  There is a definite vertical motion: the plume draws the eye up through the center where the viewer's gaze disseminates at the black edge, then follows the large textural pieces which appear to be falling back to the sea.

The photo I posted doesn't come close to doing this piece justice.  You have to get close, really look at the textures- that's what really captivates me.  

Word associations I find with this piece:

tempest, torn

Group Critique: the foot

Long Drawing, Foot, 4/6/09

My group decided that my drawing did, in fact, look like a foot, and a three dimensional one too.  They said the toe area was especially strong in creating that 3-D illusion, and that my line variation and quality added to that as well.  The ball of the foot is a little too round- it should appear more flat, especially that pad just below the big toe.  You can see anatomical landmarks like the fibula ("ankle bone" sticking out) and the 5th metatarsal (edge of the outside of the foot), along with the distinct shape of the heel bone.  Another suggestion was to address the transition from the toes to the top of the foot- the line weight changes kind of abruptly, and it creates a disconnect between the two areas.  

Overall, I'm really pleased with this drawing.  I know some people think feet are gross and can't stand them, but I think they're beautiful!  I was really excited to do this drawing.  Special thanks to Lauren, my roommate for posing her fine foot.

Group Discussion - Midterm Posts

Matt and Megan were in my group for this discussion.  We talked about the overall layout of our posts- formatting, how to get the pictures/text to appear where we want them, and which layouts are successful/easy to understand.  We all found little typos that needed editing, but our images were clear and easy to see.  For the drawings themselves, we talked the most about proportions.  All of us find that to be the hardest part to get right, whether it's the size of the pelvis compared to the ribcage, or the overall length of the torso (too long most of the time).  We also noted that the long axis line of the back is beautiful and really fun to draw :)

Midterm: Reflections

I'm very pleased with the progress I see in my drawings so far this semester.  I feel as though I am now much closer to being capable of producing the kind of drawing I envied at the beginning of the semester- the beautiful works I saw the advanced students producing, or found in last semester's final blogs.

My mark-making has improved a huge amount in the last few weeks.  I've become more comfortable drawing from my shoulder, melding my entire arm with the drawing tool in order to achieve a loose, graceful line.  I'm figuring out the balance between precise, careful, accurate observation/replications and breathing life into my lines, creating a sense of movement.  Another useful tool I've tried to use is a variety of line weights and values.  While I'm conscious of the need for that variety, and might add/subtract value in specific areas, much of the gradation of my lines is a direct result of drawing with my arm rather than my wrist.

The cross contour of the ginger root is an excellent example of all these.  I appreciated being given a specific number of hours to work on this piece, as I tend to prefer taking my time and really figuring everything out, double-checking proportions and angles.  With the 6-hour "limit," I knew I had ample time to focus on drawing correctly- positioning the root so the long axis lines were diagonal, finding the best three-quarter view where two side planes and a front plane were visible, etc.

Another addition to my mark-making is also clear in the ginger root drawing.  Because it was such a long drawing, I was able to build a sort of history into the piece.  I adjusted quite a lot, and rather than scrubbing at those lines to erase them completely, I let those light lines become another layer.  As I said, the ginger root drawing is a good example of that technique and it adds a great deal of depth.

My knowledge of the human body has expanded too.  I struggled when we did gesture drawings after only learning the pelvis and ribcage.  It was like I got a taste of the information I needed, but there wasn't quite enough to make my drawings accurate.  The medium-length poses were nice, as I could rely more on my obsercations, but now I feel like I've internalized much of that information, and it can naturally be included in my drawings.  I don't have to think about which way the lumbar vertebrae curve, or the general shape of the ribcage.  It frees me to focus on correcting my inevitably long interpretation of the torso, and other proportion issues.

Building the muscles on the manikins is challenging, but has been mostly successful.   I think learning each muscle individually contributes to the base of knowledge we pull from when drawing.  The clay manikins are a nice bridge between  the two-dimensional notes we take and the live models.  This approach to life drawing- learning about anatomy in an almost scientific manner- allows us to make more informed observations, and therefore more accurate drawings.  For example, in the 2/19 long pose, there was a clear plane change between her hp and lower abdomen.  I was able to exaggerate that curve based on information I couldn't see, knowing the crest of the pelvis caused the change.  From that I also determined the angle of the hips.  My observatinos of the body now have explanations and names to go with them, and I know it has improved my drawings.

In my most recent drawings, the contour lines are much better, but I'm still figuring that out.  Also, there are always improvements to be made in my ability to recognize the visual landmarks of the body, and identify and become familiar with proportions and placement.  I would like to see improvement in my proportions overall, and going over that in class this week was very helpful.

I am still thoroughly enjoying this class.  If anything, I'm frustrated with the lack of extra time to put into it.  All semester I've been thinking of ways I could practice, of opportunities to work outside our assignments and improve my drawings even more, but there's just not enough time!  I would love to spend hours in the library pouring over the old masters' sketches, then duplicating them and labeling my landmarks and the bones, muscles, and tendons I recognize.  Maybe I'll get a chance over break...

Midterm: Manikin

Clay Model, anterior, 3/10/09

Clay Model, right lateral, 3/10/09

Clay Model, posterior, 3/10/09