We are Back!

    Back from Spring Break, and mother nature wasn't done messing with us yet. On Monday we were assigned some more clay muscles to put on our mannequins. These muscles are part of the shoulder girdle. I feel like we are really expanding our mannequins into an actual human and I can see it. It is amazing how complicated it is and yet how simply it works. Anyways, Monday we started to draw the shoulder blades on our drawings. It is great to have a model that it is easy to see pretty much everything we need to on. The way the light hits these markers really creates a prominent line. I was both frustrated and content with my drawings. It kind of seemed like I was just putting a curved line in for where the shoulders connect to the arms in the quick gesture drawings. Amy did come by and say it was the right idea, so it must be so. When she demonstrated on the back of the model where the shoulders were and had her move them, it really reminded me how amazing the human body really is.

My Friday Frustration

    A main issue I have and am trying to get better at is the size of my drawings. I tend to draw pretty small. Even in our longer drawings I intend to draw the size of the page, and I start to lay it out, and before I know it, it is all in the center of the page again with a lot of negative space on the top and bottom. I have gotten better since the beginning of the semester, but I need to push it. Wednesday was a weird day because of the snow and many people not in class. We had drawing time which was nice. Friday in our long drawing towards the end of class I was frustrated. I took my sweet time, and barely got the figure done in the hour. I spent A LOT of time trying to get the rib cage right. My view was where his leg was in front of his torso, so I had to try to x-ray through his knee to figure it out. As for the clay muscles, I worked on them after class. I intended to get them all done, but once I had 3 left I quit for the day. Why? So that I have more to do when I don't have time to do them, I suppose.

A New Week

    Well, it is Spring Break, and yet another blog post is in order. It may be the excitement of break or the long drive home, but I am exhausted. This week I think was an interesting one learning about the human foot. Starting the week working on clay models was a little disappointing because I wanted to draw, but it provided time to catch up. It was great to actually get to complete all of the clay that wasn't due until Friday so early. We learned about a lot of different muscles in the foot such as the Extensor Hallucis Longus and the Tibialis Anterior. It is very interesting discovering how these muscles fit within the foot and why you can see certain ones more easily.
    Drawing the foot was going well but I realized that I was outlining quite a bit. I tried to incorporate more contour lines in my drawings this week. I think this was more apparent in my final long drawing on Friday. I was at first drawing toes in and they did look kind of like sausage like we mentioned on Friday. I believe I fixed this with the new content we learned on Friday. Learning about the parts of the toes such as the metatarsals and the phlanges. Knowing what makes up the toes makes it easier to draw them because you know they should bend in certain places.
    On Friday we had some 5 minute drawings and an hour long drawing. This was great to really work out proportion and get contours in to shape the foot. It is so amazing how even one contour line can make something look 3-dimensional. I always knew this, i just came to re appreciate just how simple drawing can sometimes be. If one line can achieve this dimensionality. It makes me think if I am trying too hard sometimes. 

Mid-Term!!

Here is the link to my flickr! http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryanhuettl/sets/

    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!

Last week before mid-term

    This week was a productive one for me. It was a very strange day on Monday with the snow we were getting. It seemed all day that barely anyone was in class. As a result we worked on our clay manikins the entire class period. This was a nice break from drawing and gave me a chance to get the new assignment done. This was similar to Friday when we worked on manikens and had time to get it looked at. I really enjoyed Friday's class because I had time to get the new assignment done and didn't have to work on them over the weekend. We had enough time to get our manikens checked too. I was really happy because it was the first time mine was checked to see if I had the right idea with the placement of the muscles.

    On Wednesday we did some drawing all class period. I feel like I have progressed greatly during this class period. It may not show in all of my drawings because it happened toward the end of the class period, but my confidence and understanding took a leap. My proportion is starting to get a lot better and I find myself getting better at drawing more of the figure in the 30 second drawings. Our last drawing of the day, I think it was 20 minutes, was the turning point. I had time to really analyze what it was I saw and found it easy to pinpoint where the ribs ended. I got a little confused on the placement of the pelvis, and after Amy looked at it I felt relieved. I had it basically right, just needed a few tweaks on the pelvis. I really understood what I was doing wrong and wasn't as frustrated with it.

The 4th Week (I need to come up with better titles)

    This week in Life Drawing we learned about the pelvis and how it fits in relation to the body. We are now drawing the spinal column, an egg for the rib cage, and the pelvis. I think it is great that these 3 parts are all we have to worry about right now. However, it doesn't mean it is easy. In fact, trying to get the proportion and the shapes right are kind of challenging for me right now. I'm not sure if the facial hair I am currently growing on my face has something to do with it, but this week has been an off one for me.

    I have had a hard time focusing lately for some reason. I think it is because my mind is on all of my other classes, but lets get back on track. After drawing what I believed to be an acceptable pelvis, I soon realized to some disappointment that it was indeed incorrect. I was drawing it a little too small and either too low or too high. We were given pointers on how to get the proportion right, which was extremely helpful. Drawing within two cubes is a really easy way to get it right. However, it is not as easy when the pose is anything other than straight on. I find it difficult to get the placement right when the body is twisted in different positions, and when there is foreshortening. Our last drawing on Friday was a 45 minute one. The angle I was at was one with a lot of foreshortening in the chest and stomach. I initially had some trouble in the beginning, but then I was quite happy with how it was turning out. I thought it was looking great, until the last 5 minutes when I realized that it was a little long and there was not that much foreshortening in my drawing. Looking at the model and back at my drawing I found that the arm would have to be 2 feet wide to get the same placement. I was bummed out.

Third Week!

    In this 3rd week of Life Drawing we focused on the spinal column and rib cage. This was extremely helpful in getting the right proportion and looking for markers on the body while drawing. We learned how to draw an egg shape for the rib cage. Drawing a line for the spine, and egg for the ribs, and a smaller circle for the opening of the neck is very helpful in getting a good base structure. If we can get this important base of knowledge down, it will allow us to add to it while being anatomically correct.
    At first I realized I was making this egg shape very long and a little too skinny. This really threw off the proportion of the drawing. I really focused on all of the curves of the model to find the correct markers needed to know where the bottom of the egg would be. To be honest, I have been very frustrated with my drawings so far. I think it is a combination of the 30 second time limit and the drawings not looking like anything but a curved line with an egg shape on it. Lately however, I have been a little better at drawing quick and putting in some more reference points such as the shoulders. This greatly improves the look of the form, and I am much happier with how they look now. 

    Working on the clay model has been helpful as well. Learning about these muscles and how they fit in and overlap others will be helpful when giving the drawing a more 3-dimensional look. Actually creating these muscles and placing them on the mannequin in the correct way is a good learning exercise, much better than just learning about it in lecture.
    Overall, this week has been a good one in terms of further developing a knowledge of the human body and my drawing speed. I am slowly starting to break away from my old habits of taking my time. The 30 second time limit will be helpful in making sure we get the overall proportion and pose down the first time without having to rework a lot. This will help in how we draw anything in the future.

Digital Painting

Over winter break I had some time to work
on some personal projects. One of the projects I worked on is this digital painting of Avril Lavigne I did on photoshop. This was my first attempt at a photoshop digital painting, and I just finished it about a day ago.
I am quite happy with how it turned out. I have to remind myself that it was my first attempt and could always do better with more practice. What do you think?