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