FINAL LIFE DRAWING ANALYSIS

               As I had mentioned previously in this blog, I was a little intimidated by life drawing initially since it’s been so long since I’ve taken a drawing class. Over the course of the semester my drawings have improved as I became more familiar with the actual anatomical structure of the human figure. I struggled with gesture drawings at first because I am an extremely slow drawer and I have a tendency to overanalyze. By doing so many gesture drawings, I was not only warming up, but learning to trust what my eye initially see’s. Another huge realization that I came to this semester while drawing the human figure is that much of what needs to be drawn cannot be seen. By learning to draw in the rib cage, pelvis, and shoulder blades it was actually easier to figure out the proportions of the human form. Along with this comes the muscle structure as well.  The definition of many muscles cannot be seen, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t there or that they aren’t important. As I was working on the clay maniken, I was able to connect not only the form of the human body, but also the function of the human body into my drawings. It was also interesting to have both a male and female model, because the male and female body are similar yet so different at the same time. With the male model it was a lot easier to see the muscle definition, as well as the bone structure. The moment this semester that I was able to connect and understand figure drawing the best was when we first began working with our male model. The reason is because, since I could see the definition of muscle and bone a lot easier, I was able to connect it with what we were learning about the bone and muscle structure. Through the cross contour drawings and planar analysis, I found myself beginning to capture the actual dimensionality of the human form a lot better. My weaknesses during the semester were gesture drawings and actually getting the entire form on the page. When I had more time allotted to draw I was able to get the entire body on the page, but when only getting 30 seconds to 2 minutes, I really struggled. I would also like to master the use of line variation much better. There are many shining moments with the use of line variation in my drawings, but I have a tendency to overwork my drawings. By overworking my drawings, I’ve noticed that most of my lines become heavy and one-note. Line variation brings freshness and movement to a drawing and when I overanalyze the human form and over work the drawing, I’ve noticed that the freshness of the drawing is easily lost. I think that after completing this semester, my strongest point would be my ability to capture fairly accurate proportions of the human figure. 

FLICKR LINK

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spenglerlisa/

FINAL IMAGES

WALKER/SCIENCE MUSEUM ADVENTURE

This is a drawing of the front leg of a Triceratops. At first I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about drawing the bones of dinosaurs, especially since there were small children running around everywhere. However as I started drawing, I rather enjoyed it. It was interesting to see how similar the bone structure of many of the dinosaurs are to humans. Especially since I was able to look at a bone and identify it. I could also imagine what the muscle structure of the creature would be like by examining the bone structure. Also since the Triceratops is such a massive creature, it was easier for me to notice the plane changes of the bones as compared to human bones. 

My favorite part of the Walker was the Joseph Bueys exhibit, whom I rather fancy as an artist. I am very familiar with the work of Bueys as an installation artist and the reasoning behind his use of fur and fat. I have never seen any of his work in person though, such as one of the felt suits that was hanging in the Walker. I of course had to take a few minutes and watch, what is probably his most famous piece "I Like America and America Likes Me". It was also interesting to view many of the materials he used in his instillation pieces, particularly noticing the age of the materials.