Final Portfolio

Here's the link:
Final Portfolio

When I started out in this class, I was hoping to learn more about life drawing in terms of value studies and details. I was not expecting the complete 180 of drawing figures in terms of a structural approach with lines and planes. This at first was a little unsettling but as I moved through the semester, I began to understand why learning drawing this way was just as important as the value and detailing. It helps to develop a better sense of how the body is formed structurally, rather than just simple outlining that can flatten the end image. The anatomy lectures were helpful, though at the same time I honestly felt that they were a little too detailed for applying to the exterior form.

Before this course, I'll be truthful in saying I had an extreme dislike for cross contours. When I applied them to the human form though, I began to understand them as more than just lines that were straight across the outline. I saw how the curvature of them helped to define the varying shapes that are seen on parts of the body. I will possibly be using them in my personal drawings in the future, but more than likely only as a base of what my final composition will look like.

As for the Maniken - it just never was (or is) going to be something I am a fan of. I understood how it was helpful in applying the anatomy lectures and having a visual to reference for drawing, but I couldn't appreciate the clay modeling. This more than likely is because of my hand tremors, which I've talked about in 1 or 2 earlier posts. By no means am I advocating that it should be taken out of the coursework because I do believe it is very helpful, but I just want to say that I personally disliked it.

I think my line-work still has a long ways to go. My main problem is that when I draw from sketching I either draw too light or am too heavy-handed. I am still having issues building the line weight as I work, rather than going back and adjusting it after. It's definitely something I can work to improve upon.

I definitely think that my ability to perceive the human figure with an anatomical eye has improved quite a bit since the beginning of the semester; even since midterm. It has become less about the minor details and outlining and more about the planes and the cross-contours to help develop the form in space on my paper. I now look at random people (when it's not creepy) and visualize in my head how I would draw the contours in order to capture what I'm seeing.

Although I'm not a new fan of structural drawing and will more than likely stick to my personal tastes of value, I am confident that what I've learned in this class will have a big impact on my future work. By understanding the anatomical and structural qualities of the human figure, I can better create a 3-D form on paper than just by outlining details and having the value make the level changes. I can also look back at my old work and see where mistakes have been made so I can continue to develop my skills based on what I have learned in this course.

Would've been nice...

Well, I guess I need to read more carefully. I didn't realize we were supposed to be making a blog post for every week of the semester. I guess it would have been nice to be reminded every once in a while, but that's water under the bridge.

Anyways - I know we could take the time to make up blog posts for all of the ones we've missed, but in the short period I have to be doing this I can't really think about much that I could write about. So I'm willing to lose some points towards my total grade by making this one blog post rather than pulling 7 weeks worth of information out of the back of my brain. Let's be honest - I don't want to write things that are meaningless because I need to fill space.

So as I said, here's my statement saying I'm willing to lose some points because of this. I would've liked some more clarity on the blog posting because I had thought we only needed to post blogs when we were told or if we felt like it.

Midterm Portfolio

Well, here's the link to my portfolio to start with. No clue if I did it right:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48510655@N03/sets/

I feel I've learned a lot over the first half of the semester in Life Drawing 1. It has definitely helped to develop my personal skills of drawing, and I'm exhilirated by that notion. I think the biggest learning tool over the course was studying the models, and learning how the muscles worked together to create the curves and lines we see on the body. It especially helped to apply this learning while we were working on cross-contours. I know before this class, I absolutely hated doing these, but applying them to the human form gives me a better understanding of the body as a three-dimensional object.

Personally, I really would love to work more on getting fore-shortening down as we haven't really covered that very much and I know that is a big weakness for me. Trying to see the lines in space to get them at just the right length to get the idea of foreground/background is something I have a hard time wrapping my head around. I think my strongest aspect of drawing that makes up for this is really understanding the anatomy of the body and being able to view the subject and apply it in a way that the proportions are fairly accurate.

Honestly though when it comes to doing homework with the shell, I'm a little frustrated. I completely understand that the shapes and lines on the shell are supposed to relate to the human body, but for some reason I've always had a harder time drawing inanimate objects compared to the human body. It would be nice if at least one homework assignment was to have an image of a person or yourself and do a drawing based off that with continuous line, blind contour, cross-contour, or any other technique.

Lastly, I'm not really sure anything I've learned in Life Drawing really relates to my other courses (which are Critical Writing, Interiors II, and Lighting Design) besides my Yoga class. These two courses are already tied together, so I don't know if I need to go into depth about what's already covered between them.

Walker Art Center Assignment

To start with, this assignment was harder than I had expected. I found it hard to enjoy most of the pieces as they conflict with my personal artistic style and tastes, though there were a small few that held my attention for a few minutes. Overall, I think the current exhibits just didn't hold my interest so it was a less-than-thrilling experience.

Alright, onto the assignment. The piece I found that captured my attention and held it was entitled "Ceaseless Boundless Endless Joy" which was created in 2008 by Todd Norsten. It features an oil on canvas (roughly 7' x 5') design, the words of the title painted on white canvas; it almost is reminiscent of ripping masking tape and placing the pieces to form letters and then words.

What I found entrancing about this piece was how simple it was, but it still brought a smile to my face. It challenged me to search the depths of my soul to find that expression of joy just so I could relate to the piece. Personally, I viewed the art as a giant metaphor, albeit a little cliche, but still meaningful - life is a great big blank canvas and as you experience it, you need to find those moments of ceaseless, boundless, and endless joy to patch up some of the rough spots.

That being said, there was one other piece that caught my attention: Robert Irwin's Slant/Light/Volume exhibit. The way it was set up drew me in and I felt encompassed by the light. It was almost breathtaking because the piece had an end to it, but it felt like I could almost soar passed it and into an endless beyond. It's a little hard to explain my feelings when I experienced this piece, and this is why I posed the other as my assignment.

Anatomy and Personal Doodles

So I've found that learning anatomy of muscles and the skeleton in Life Drawing so far has really inspired me to doodle lately. Granted, I'm only able to do so when I find that little nugget of spare time nestled among my stressed-out-and-way-too-busy life style.

Lately, I've been using what I've learned to work on drawing human and humanoid creatures for a book I'm writing (entitled "Surrendering World" - please buy it if and when it gets published!), and I definitely feel that this course is helping slowly move away from the anime-like sketching I've done for years.

Also, I've been doodling on a couple pages of my personal sketchbook and calling those pages my "Creature Shop". Normally, I don't draw regular animals or monster-like animals of any sort because I feel uncomfortable in that drawing realm. But after working with the human figure in this course, I've felt truly inspired to learning the anatomy of other things whether they be real or of my own creation. (Sorry for the blurriness of the image. My hand did a little tremor shake when I took the picture. I'll take a better one to replace it later.)

Meet My Shell

Meet my shell. I'm currently using this for my drawing class in order to complete some assignments. My latest assignment was to do some research to find out more about it.

First, I discovered that it is a conch shell - I somehow subconsciously knew this, but needed to check anyways. The word "conch" comes from the French terminology for the Greek word that was used to described shellfish and their shells, and is now currently used to refer only to the shell. They are typically occupied by sea snails, otherwise known as gastropod mollusks. They are common in the Indian Ocean, as well as along the American side of the Atlantic Ocean all the way down to Brazil.

They range from medium to large sizes; some typical sizes are 7 or 12 inches. They are typically pink on the inside, and can range between creams and browns on the outside. A recognizable feature is its flaring lip with a stromboid notch near the anterior end. Most of the information that I was finding otherwise was describing the snail. I wasn't able to find much about the shell itself other than some human uses such as making horns.

Ode to Modeling Clay: How I Loathe Thee

So, for tomorrow's class we are supposed to have some muscles created out of modeling clay on our Manikens. Well - I absolutely detest it! I've done my modeling and it looks like shit.

I'm pretty sure I know why too. I've never been good at modeling anything with my hands, especially since I suffer from familial tremors. Basically, that means that any minor, detailed task that needs to be done with a person's hand is severely limited for me since I shake. Think Parkinson's disease except only in the hands.

I take medication for it, but it only limits the amount of shaking - not remove it completely. I've adapted to drawing because it's something I love doing in my spare time. As for modeling clay: I haven't worked with it since oh... middle school! That's over 10 years ago!

I apologize for ranting. Writing is just my best way for taking out my frustration if I don't want to be reduced to tears.

Reflections on Life Drawing

So in the past week for Life Drawing, we have been working on gesture drawing (seen to the left) and contour drawing, which I discussed a little in my last post.

For our last class, we focused on learning about the functions and display of the spine. At first when we learned on the first day of class that we would be learning about individual parts of the body to progress in our drawing, I wasn't too enthused.

Now that we have actually focused on a specific part, I've learned that it is extremely important. By doing so, we are able to understand how the body is functioning as well as concepts in drawing such as fore-shortening. We also were able to work on our line weight, which is something I would like to continue to do as I know I have a bit of a heavy hand when it comes to drawing.

The only thing I have a hard time appreciating is keeping your hand off the paper as you draw. It's supposed to make a more fluid movement through your arm as you sketch, but I almost feel like at least a part of my hand should touch the paper so as to keep an intimate connection. By taking my hand off the paper, I feel like I'm breaking the flow - that I'm losing that connection between myself and my subject.

Anyways, that's my reflection for this time around - more next time!

Contour Drawings

So for our last class, we worked on learning the differences between gesture drawings and contour drawings. After discussing them, we performed two examples: blind contour and continuous line drawing.

The one show here is my blind contour drawing, where the point is to draw the figure without looking at your drawing as you develop it. We took 30 minutes to do this. Personally, I'm not a fan of any blind drawing - I think this has to do with my impatience and my OCD for perfection. I want to actually look at my drawing and fix what I've done.

Anyways, we have to develop three words based on our drawings, so I choose:

• Heavy
• Smooth
• Death

If you want me to explain those in any detail, just leave a comment (critique) and I'll do my best to explain. Enjoy my craptastic artwork!

Proper Introduction

First of all, thanks for reading.

Anyhoo, my name is Megan. I'm 24 (6th year of college) in the Art - Interior Design major at Stout, minoring in English Writing. I like to write, draw, listen to music, surf the Internet, and play games in my spare time. I also am a big fan of Japan and its culture, and I hope to one day be able to visit there. Right now, I'm working to hopefully be able to study abroad in France this summer for the Color Studio course.

I'm taking the Life Drawing class to hopefully work on developing my drawing with a better understanding of anatomy. It will be a challenge to apply skills that do not involve rendering, especially as that has been something I've been working on developing the past couple of years. The following pieces are just a couple of things I've done in my free time (neither of which are finished) a while ago based on some characters in the book that I'm working on writing. Click to enlarge and enjoy!

Brand New to Blogging

Hello there. My name is Megan, although a nickname my friends have come up with for me is Strawberry Meggs, which is what I will be going by in this blog.

The main focus of this blog is for a class that I am enrolled in for Spring 2010 known as Life Drawing I. I will be sharing my reflections of what I am learning in this course, as well as images of my works and notes taken.

Please bear with me in the beginning as I edit this blog, as I plan to be going through the html to personalize the layout to my own tastes.