Week 15: Final Portfolio

                            Flickr Final Portfolio

This semester has gone so fast, but It's been great! I have learned so much about the human anatomy, and how the body works...it's been really amazing to spend an entire semester drawing directly from a model. At the beginning of the semester it hard to get into the habit of drawing gestures for the first half hour of class or so, because I wanted to start right into drawing the full body complete with details. Your arm also gets tired very quickly, which can be discouraging. I think I have built up a tolerance for it by now however, and the time goes by quicker than ever once you forget about it. The mannequin was also really helpful in understanding the muscles, the class would be pretty difficult without having that knowledge on the side to reference from. I don't think I'll be able to remember all of the names, but I know I can at least recognize their function and placement on the human body.
     I have such an admiration and appreciation of the human body because of this class. The simple things such as studying the shoulder blade, learning the bone structure underneath it, and then watching it the muscles move and flex on the model. Amazing. Our bodies are so fantastic when you really understand them, and I don't even have to be a doctor. I don't know how our nerves and blood cells work as in depth, but I can still have a this great appreciation and wonder from drawing the body, which is cool!
     Its such a great opportunity to also go to the open life drawing as well because the cost is usually so high to draw from a live model, and at Stout everything is paid for. Hopefully I'll continue to attend the drawing sessions next year when I get the chance, it'd be a great way to keep up my drawing skills. I'm a Graphic Design major, but having good illustration skills is also really important to integrate into my portfolio.

Week 14

This was our last full week of classes! I can't believe it...time flies. We had two class periods to work on the head and bust...I had a direct profile view, so I think mine feels kinda flat looking, but I like how it turned out. We also had time for a long pose friday. Another weird angle with the foot harshly fore-shortened, but I did feel like I had a stronger sense of how the head rests on the shoulders from doing the bust pose a day earlier.

Week 13

                                                                                      

We've continued with the skull this week, but focused more on individual facial features. We started with the eyes and nose, and it went pretty well, but all of the planes on the features were very small to capture, so drawing bigger was a challenge. The landmarks and guidelines to help you position the features were very helpful. For instance, the outside edges of the nose line up with the inner corners of the eye, as if there was an invisible line there. The eye has also many small planes that can really complete the eye- such as the small top plane of the lower eye-lid. This usually is highlighted because of the wetness of the eye, and makes it come to life quite effortlessly. It was difficult to position the iris inside the eyeball itself, because the upper eyelid actually covers most of the eye. Its tempting to want to draw the pupil as if fully seen, but you quickly realize that it doesn't look quite right...more like a deer headlights. We did not draw from the regular models, instead we drew each other, so that was a different experience...I can appreciate what the models go through when remaining still, its not easy to be motionless for so long and hold a pose...oofta.