Summary of the semester

I feel as though I have learned a lot about bone structure, line drawing, cross contour lines in three dimensional space and the use of ink with drawing materials. It has been helpful to me to catalogue all of these things with my camera and place them online on this blog and my flickr account as well.

Shell Drawing 3

I am proud of the collection of various length drawings, maniken, and shell drawings I completed this semester and overcoming my fears of drawing from life. There are many ways in which I will continue to pursue the goals I set out for myself at the beginning of the semester in this class. I want to gain more confidence in my drawing skills in order to draw on the board as an art teacher as Amy draws three dimensional skeletal structure on the board in demonstrations. I feel like that skill will come with time and experience but it is something I am looking forward to.

Shell Drawing 4

One thing I believe I will continue to work on is my sense of identity in my drawings. As I traveled around the room during drawing sessions with the figure I noticed how distinctly different styles appeared on many classmates drawing boards. I want to be able to express my own style through my drawings as I do through my paintings. There are many ways in which Life Drawing has informed the figures I paint through proportions and tools I can utilize as though I am drawing through paint. I would like the opposite to ring true as well and have my painting style inform my drawing.

FINAL PORTFOLIO

Tuesday December 7th

Shell drawing three Critique

Some things in critique we needed to pay attention to and make note of were:

Did the shell demonstrate a strong long axis line?

Was the ink integrated well enough into the whole composition?

What kind of strokes were used and were they in the correct direction?

Do the contour lines and ink feel as though they were created by waves as the shell was?

Are the recessed areas darkened and protrusions or closer areas lighter?

What can be done to make the next shell drawing the best?

Today in class we critiqued our third shell drawing and I got some feedback from my group of classmates about good qualities in my drawings and things to improve on for the next and final drawing. My group said there was a nice depth of tonal range in the ink on my drawing. One way to improve on my next shell drawing is to pay attention to the front small spiral portion of the shell and make sure that it has the roundness that will make it feel three dimensional. In my drawing it did come off feeling a little flat in that area. I also need to go back in and darken the cross contour drawing. I initially drew the shell in very lightly in pencil and planned to go back in and darken the contour drawing but haven’t yet because I want to make sure it is well enough integrated into the ink.

For my next shell drawing I am looking forward to knowing what to expect with the ink and employing some new strategies we discussed in group critique. I am going to start out my ink use with lighter dilutions so that the areas can build up tonally slower. Then I will go in later on with darker concentration of ink into the recesses of the shell.

After the critique of our shells we drew the hands of our partner and traded off drawing for a half hour and then modeling for a half an hour. It was more difficult than I thought it would be but here was me giving it a shot.

On Thursday we talked about the skull and went over some interesting concepts of what makes up the basic shape of it. These are my hour long drawings from the skeletons in class.

December 4^th, 2010

As I was flipping through my biggie pad I noticed that I haven’t blogged about my figure work in some time. A while back we learned about the feet with the muscles and tendons over top. We completed a long drawing of the model’s feet and a long drawing of her seated up on the podium. These are photographs of my work from that day.

Study of the feet, long drawing

Long pose drawing

Most recently we worked on our manikins on correcting problems with the leg muscles in class and beginning the rest of the work to finish out the semester. I had some issues with my manikins thighs being too thin and some issues with blending the clay together too much on the back of the thigh. I went back in a couple days ago to delineate the muscles from one another and make them more distinct. Amy gave us books to look at that show how the muscles look together as a whole and I have been going back and forth from this book to the atlas to see how the muscles interact together. Now they look how better than they initially did with more roundness and attention paid to the separation between individual muscles.

As we learned about the arms and shoulders we learned how the clavicle and scapula work together on the figure. The shoulder blades should take up half of the length of the spine on the medial border of the ribcage on the back from the 2^nd to 7^th ribs. The shoulder blades will do whatever the arms do. After learning about the shoulder blades and clavicle we drew from the maniken with a series of gesture drawings and then a long drawing to become familiar with the form of the bone and connection to the arm and shoulder. I thought it was funny to be drawing from a skeleton but it was very informative to see where the bones form the shape and

contours of muscle tissue that will lay on top of them. In some ways I wished that we would have been drawing from the skeleton simultaneously from the beginning of the semester on days when the model was sick.

5 minute gestures of the skeleton with scapula and clavicle

Long drawing of the skeleton with scapula and clavicle

Tuesday November 23rd

Today we went to the Walker Art Center to tour the museum and then went to the Bell Museum of Natural History to draw some animals. My favorite part of the Walker Art Center was the Yves Klein exhibition. I recently visited the museum this fall and the Klein exhibition was closed for cleaning or some sort of work on the installation so I was unable to walk through so I was very happy to see the exhibition. The best part was the textures of Klein's canvases and interesting materials he used in order to establish the base and then rub pigments into the surfaces. I saw on his materials list Klein Blue pigment, sponges, plaster, wood, canvas, elements such as rain and wind. One piece was a vat of raw pigment laying in the center of the room. It was intriguing to see the infamous patented pigment we have studied in three dimensional design and sculpture up close in person.

At the Bell Museum of Natural History the most interesting thing that struck me was the array of stuffed animals on display. I get creeped out by birds so I stuck to the lower level where there were animals that walk on all fours like deer, moose, elk, bears, beavers, muskrats etc. One animal in particular stuck out to me as being something I'd like to draw and that was a beaver standing on the top of a ridge who looked like he was directing all the other beavers on what work they should be doing. He reminded me of the life sized Mr. and Mrs. Beaver from the BBC Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe so I drew him for most of our time at the Museum.

This is my drawing from the Bell museum of a Mr. Beaver

Thursday November 18^th

Today in class we went over the shell assignment and discovered ways to use ink through experimentation on hot press watercolor paper. The main website we are looking to for this assignment is:

Jane Rosen Teaching

Where there are many great examples of shell contour drawings that are drawn over with ink washes to convey the depth of surface in the shells. I left my shell at home so I worked from a vertebrae in the classroom and struggled to put the form on the page. There are some similarities between the vertebrae and my shell but there are also more complexities in the vertebra that made me wish I had remembered to bring my shell to class.

We first worked for half an hour to about forty five minutes to get a general contour drawing of the object laid out on the paper. Then there were a series of areas closer to the eye that had to be lightly erased on the page to convey their higher points capturing light in space and the opposite had to be done to darken the crevices as well. As we moved on there are multiple ways to lay down light ink washes with larger brushes and work to darker depths and smaller brushes in the crevices of the shell.

Here is a photo of my shell drawing experimentation with ink.

The goals for this third view cross contour drawing are to have more exaggeration with light and dark cross contour lines. The way we are working with dark and light is reverse that from how we were working previously with the light areas being the highest and closest. I am looking forward to further experimentation and getting started on the third shell drawing in ink.

November 9th, 2010

Compare and Contrast of Old and New Shell Drawings in small groups

While comparing my old drawing to my new shell drawing it was noted that I should have more line variation throughout the bulk of the shell. There needs to be more attention paid to proportion even though the angle looking at the shell was a difficult job with foreshortening. My group also told me to use the lines on the shell for actual indicators on planar changes and "cheat" using those planar changes to indicate the spiral motion of the shell's long tube.

I took the advice from my fellow classmates and put some more work into my shell drawing after the in class critique. This is the shell drawing that came out of more work in paying attention to my line weight and the overall darkening of my line work as well as additional contour lines.

2nd Cross Contour Shell Drawing

Mid Term Portfolio Reflection

Improvements and Reflection

While I was reflecting on my first half of the semester I found a few areas I would like to improve upon. I would like to improve on getting the whole figure in the drawing area during gesture drawing. I find it very difficult to force myself to draw so quickly because I usually work slow while I am drawing things out. I would also like to draw the whole figure larger during our longer drawings, I find myself only using a quarter of the page when I should be drawing larger to fill the page with the figure as we are taking so much time to focus and draw. I would also like to measure more accurately and get the essence of the person I am drawing more exactly on my page. I want to also practice more restraint in the beginning of my long drawing sessions as I find myself darkening areas too quickly when I have to erase them out and redraw them back in anyways.

As for the shell drawing and homework I would like to focus more attention on the curve of the shell with more lines in the front and fewer lighter lines going farther away in the distance. There were some areas in my first shell drawing where the lines coming over the front curve of the shell connected or confused the eye with the lines in the concave part of the shell so I tried to fix them up to make sure they weren't connected. I am happy with the overall drawing and the long axis line that takes up the majority of the page but feel that I need to pay more attention to details and giving the drawing a sense of life.

View my Portfolio here.

Tuesday October 19th

I was absent from class but there was a lecture on the pelvic points and six questions that were answered in groups about the Shell Drawings:

1. Does it have a dynamic long axis?

2. Is the whole shell/use of the whole page effective?

3. No outlines

4. Is every line different?

5. Are plane changes evident? Line direction changes with plane change.

6. Does the line portray a sense of life? Why/How?

Thursday October 21st

In class we had a lecture about the Glut muscles and then went through them from the Gluteus Maximus, Gluteus Medius and Tensor Fasciae Latae

Photo of Glut muscles altogether

I enjoyed class today working through the whole three hours on this series of muscles. It was therapeutic for me to accomplish something, get some good feedback and help, and to walk out with a better sense of all the potential I'm sitting on :)

October 12th

Life Drawing class was cancelled. I stayed up late to get my abs done and then realized class was cancelled. It was a bummer.

October 14th

Life Drawing class was cancelled again today. We found out about a fieldtrip we are going on which I am very excited about. It's always nice to get out of Menomonie, even if it is just for a little day trip. I started my Shell drawing and used cancelled studio time to work on it but I kept getting confused about which way the contour should go. My drawing feels fragmented and unfinished but I also started a second one so maybe I will continue on with that one after critique. I am just trying to spatially figure it out and put it into context in my own artwork. Here it is so far though:

Cross contour shell drawing with pencil and conte crayon

October 5th

This week we had a lecture on the abdominal muscles including the Quadratus Lomborum, External Obliques and the Rectus Abs. We continued to draw gesture drawings of the model with the long axis line and the egg of the ribcage in mind as the first step in our drawings. I keep finding myself trying to get close up to my drawing and have to hold myself back. The shoulder work is quite exhausting but it is nice to think that I am building up those muscles to use them in painting too.

October 7th

After a bit of gesture drawing we did the relational angle drawing exercise today. Meanwhile we were drawing with our utensils taped to the end of a pencil to force ourselves to stand back and use our whole arm and body to draw the figure. The angle drawing exercise is where you are constantly measuring and recording the angle and distance of major points on the the model and indicating them on your drawing. I found this to be a fascinating process. First you lay down a very light gesture drawing where the

figure is on your page and then you move back in to specific areas closely measuring their correctness compared with the model using your drawing utensil like the hands on a clock. I found the process to be very consuming of energy trying to get every detail properly placed on my paper. It got difficult at points to clarify what I was really seeing. It was troublesome when we took breaks for the model and slight details were off in areas but I tried my best to work around those.

Over the weekend Gertrude got a nice set of chiseled abs, looks like she might even be smiling. Just a little bit.

September 28^th

Today in class we broke up into small groups and took a look at craft, accuracy and overall consistency of the back muscles we built over the weekend. While we were critiquing our manikens in small groups it made me realize how many approaches there are to doing an assignment. Reflecting on our building experience made me appreciate where everyone was coming from when I realized how many of us were having the same struggles with building muscles. Some struggles we talked about were how difficult it was to build muscles and how they interact with muscles we had already built and attached to the skeleton. One way for us to solve this is to use tracing paper and look back and forth from muscle to muscle in the atlas in order to visualize their interaction on the skeleton.

Egg shape ribcage exercise

September 30^th

The lecture on the ribcage was interesting to see how the bones and muscles all interact in the torso. I find it difficult to imagine a line in 3-Dimensional space that delineates a far point in the Drawing the egg shape for the ribcage was difficult to get used to. When it came to drawing what we were discussing I found myself finding old habits or new habits we were trying to create while drawing the whole figure. We were drawing an egg shape to show the curves of the ribcage and how it comes up to an A shape toward the neck. As we progressed on to draw multiple ribcages I started to lose focus on just drawing the ribcage and long axis line of the body. I kept fighting myself to not draw the whole body and details while just sticking to the main shape of the torso and long axis.

25 minute torso cross contour exercise

September 21st

This week the contour line drawing was a lot more consuming than the past contour drawings. I found myself actually focusing on the figure more and trying to forget about proportions. I enjoyed the process of drawing while not worrying too much about how the whole things would turn out. That is something that I have to consciously remind myself while I am drawing in a large setting because I feel that drawing is not one of my artistic strengths but something I really need to work hard at.

one minute gesture drawing

one minute gesture drawing

30 minute contour drawing

September 23rd

The clay modeling on the skeleton is a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. With measuring the skeleton from one vertebrae to the next in order to see how long the muscle should be before I cut it out was something I had not considered before I started the process. I hope this is something that becomes easier as the semester goes on. I also had not considered how gentle I need to be when attaching other muscles in order to not damage the ones already attached to the skeleton. Eek! My long fingernails keep getting in the way and taking chunks out of the muscles already attached.

I am looking forward to how all of the muscles are going to come together. I noticed while attaching the muscles how difficult it is to see where the attachments should go when muscles are already laid down before them. It is a weird concept to think about internalizing these muscles that are overlapping and so complex and spiral that we all have inside us. It is a humbling experience to say the least. I am also looking forward to drawing back muscles and playing around with how they appear underneath the skin of the model.

September 14th

Blind contour exercise

The blind contour exercise with my shell was intriguing in how loose I was able to let my utensil wander. One student commented at the critique that my line was very whimsical and lent itself to the atmosphere of the beach. What I appreciated most about this exercise was my ability to find the shape of the shell with lines that I was not looking at but feeling instead.

Blind contour exercise 30 minutes

Continuous Contour line exercise

Continuous Contour line drawing exercise I felt was more contrived and harder to maintain the distance that I had while drawing in the blind contour exercise. When my mind gets in the way my lines get more trapped and thought out. I enjoyed the quickly rendered quality I achieved with the blind contour drawing.

Continuous Contour Drawing 30 minutes

September 16th

Gesture drawing with the figure

After standing at my easel in painting for 3 hours doing an observational exercise from the same subject matter this was a nice chance of pace. Although my arms and feet were exhausted I pushed through it. After a few minutes my mind forgot about how my body was feeling and tried to keep up with the constant movement of the m

odel. This was an interesting and overwhelming task to work so quickly on the figure. I feel uncomfortable with my skill level and self-conscious about how my drawings turned out. The shorter the length of time the more confident my lines were. It seems like right now the harder I try to control my lines the more I dislike the way they turn out. I also tried rotating my pencil to draw more like a paintbrush, which feels uncomfortable, but something to work up to to help with the movement of my body.

Gesture of the figure 1 minute

Gesture of the figure 10 minutes

Gesture of the figure 5 minutes

Overall the first week of drawing and drawing the figure has opened my eyes in how I look at the figure while brainstorming for painting. This week has made me look for the way the body is moving underneath the skin instead of just the surface. I feel like Life Drawing is already building my knowledge of the body and strengthening my painting skills. I look forward to how this shows through in my Senior Show and beyond.

I decided to major in art my freshman year of High School when my art teachers showed me a new way of looking at life that supported my creativity.

My concentration is in Art Education with my focus in painting.

I am proud of my work in that pushes the boundaries of how I’ve worked before. Some especially successful works in these adventures have been; my photography from my study abroad in Rome, sculpture class where I worked with video installation and my small paintings and photographs combining paint with printmaking. My senior show will be this semester primarily focusing in painting.

My favorite course so far at UW-Stout so far was Children’s Literature. Outside of class we read through children’s books and got to choose our favorites for their artistic and educational content and present them. I fell in love with David Wiesner’s work style interesting the way he uses visual storytelling with his background in illustration and design. We also had story time during class where the professor read to us in that exaggerated way we read to young children and had an enthralling performance just about every class. It made me feel like a kid again.

I am taking Life Drawing I in order to discover more about the body and to further my figure drawing skills. This is a class I have been looking forward to for the past few years and I am finally up to the challenge. I hope by taking this course I will have more confidence that will carry over from drawing to painting the figure.

I hope to be student teaching this spring and then following graduation to be teaching in a K-12 school district in Minnesota. I have not decided yet if I will be teaching elementary or secondary but am open to the opportunity to teach both!