Well, it is already Mid-term and this semester seems to be flying by. Life Drawing so far has been a real interesting experience. I have always wanted to take this class to learn to draw the human body better. The semester started out slow, just learning about the spinal column. It wasn't always easy though, trying to figure out what the spine would curve like in different positions. Adding in the egg shape for the rib cage was harder than I thought it would be. Trying to get the proportion right can be very frustrating at times. The models we have had have been great. It is fairly easy to see the ribs and the spine on them to make it easy to see the "markers, " and draw from them. As you can see in many of my drawings, I have been working on getting the ribs to be more in proportion. I have been drawing them too long most of the time. In the drawing to the right I was working on getting the pelvis to be the same width as the rib cage.
As confusing as the angle of the ribs can be, it is easy in comparison to the pelvis in my opinion. At first it took me a while to understand the spacing between where the ribs end and the pelvis begins. I think I have made a lot of progress with that. I can get the normal anterior and posterior standing view right for the most part I think. What I find kind of confusing is when the model is sitting or at a strange angle or position. I am still trying to get right what angle the pelvis would actually be at in these positions. I have made some progress with this, but I still feel like I have a lot to learn. The 30 second drawings were very irritating to me at first because I would draw so slow that I would only have half the figure in by the time the buzzer went off. I have always been more into drawing detail so I had some habits to break. I am happy to say that throughout this first half of the semester I have improved my speed at drawing the quick gestures.
The manikins have been interesting as well. I think it is interesting learning about the different muscles in the body so that we know what is making up the parts of the body. I didn't initially think we were going to get into the muscles as in depth as we are, so it was a nice surprise. As tedious as the clay muscles can be I think it is a good learning tool so we can get a visual of it on a body rather than just reading about it or taking notes in lecture.
This second half of the semester I think I will see a huge leap of improvement. I am going to have to work on my proportion and how I handle foreshortening. I also have to do more with contour lines. The way I see it, this first semester was building a base knowledge of the spine, ribs, and pelvis. I don't know if there are any specifics I would like to learn since I am sure we will get to the legs and arms. I suppose I would like to have a better understanding of hands and feet. I am just assuming we are not going to get to the face in this life drawing class. I am not sure what we will learn next or what we will get to cover. All I know is I am excited to find out!
I have the same problem with the angle of the pelvis, the mind tricks me every time. The habit of measuring the angle that Amy has been having us do helps though!
ReplyDeleteif only the models would keep in vertical positions with no foreshortening then all the proportions would be so much easier to do. Sadly they don't so getting the pelvis to hip ratio can be tricky. But I think that its a good thing that they are tricky and we are all getting help on it because even though it is frustrating I think that it is helping everyone improve greatly in their drawings.
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