Midterm Portfolio

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

Summary:

This class has been very beneficial to all of my artwork in general. I now understand the value of looking deeper in order to get a better understanding of a structure. This enables me to portray a form to the best of my ability. It is easy to see which drawings are the beginners, since they consist mainly of outline (gesture drawings 4, 5/ large drawing 8). As the drawings progress, there is more bone structure depicted, as well as some muscles (muscles especially shown in large drawing 1).

The gesture drawings have been helpful as research to my larger drawings. Practicing drawing muscles and bones in different positions has really helped me understand how parts of the body move and in what direction. I think the most helpful thing that I have learned is how to draw the spine, rib cage and pelvis. In the past, when drawing a person, I had no idea where to start. It is very helpful starting with the four curves of the spinal column (cervical, thoracic, lumbar, sacral). It maps out where everything else on the body will be placed.

Through the three contour drawings, I have learned how the skin moves over the muscles and bones. At first, this way of drawing was foreign to me. I had never really attempted to draw with this technique, but I am slowly improving (starting with homework drawing 1, then large drawing 7, then large drawing 3).

I have found the mannequins extremely helpful in understanding what is in the body. While I do drawings during class, I find myself thinking back to what I built on my mannequin as a reference to what I am drawing. It is helpful to hear lectures and watch demonstrations about where the muscles and bones are located, but it is helpful on a whole other level to experience building the muscles on my own. I am a hands-on learner and tactile experiences greatly help me.

Strengths and Weaknesses:

In terms of my drawings, I would say a weakness would be my line quality. I typically draw very dark and it would benefit my drawings to vary my line weight. A very obvious problem I have is planning out my composition. Almost all of my drawings go off the page in odd places. I have a bad habit of jumping in without thought. I also have a long way to go before I really understand how the muscles look under the skin. I need to improve my ability to understand how the muscles connect and where they connect to one another. This goes for my mannequin as well. Some other weaknesses in my mannequin is I am a little unsure as to how the sizes of each muscle relate to one another. There are areas of my mannequin that look a little off and I think it is because the size of the muscle is incorrect. It is difficult for me to see how big one muscle is compared to others surrounding it. A way of solving this is going online and searching pictures to get other examples.

Some strengths of my drawings would be that most of my proportions are working for me recently. I feel like large drawings 4, 5, and 6 are especially successful in terms of proportion. In these drawings I periodically drew diagonal lines to make sure all of my angles were matching up. I believe that this is why they ended up so successful. I am finally getting the hang of how the rib cage and pelvis relate to one another and this is also a strength of my recent drawings. Strengths of my mannequin would be craftsmanship. I feel like I did a pretty good job of keeping the clay clean looking and in the correct areas.

Improvements:

I would like to improve my knowledge of how the muscles attach and look together. I also need to improve the aesthetic quality of my drawings. Right now, they look very structured and rigid, but I would like them to look more pleasing to the eye at some point. I will need to improve the appearance of my mannequin by looking up examples of muscles on the internet to get other points of view rather than just from our books.

Advisement Day Week

I feel like the clay building really helped me this past week. I have a much better understanding of how the muscles should look under skin and I think it is apparent in my hour long drawing from last Thursday.

Yep.

So, I feel like I was doing better last week. I don't know what changed, but I feel like my drawings got worse. Hopefully this next week will be better. I almost feel as if I am concentrating too hard on getting the rib cage and the pelvis aligned correctly. I haven't been paying much attention to the figure itself, and my drawings end up looking like crap. For example, my figures are going off the page because I get so involved in just getting the bones correct. Oh well, I guess maybe I have to get worse before I can get better.

Feeling some success

I can honestly say that I had no idea what I was capable of when it comes to drawing the human figure. In the past when I have drawn people, they looked like there was no bone structure and almost looked cartoon-ish. I can happily say that I no longer have this problem. I am very excited to see how much I have grown in my drawing ability in just a few weeks. I've learned that with the right instruction, drawing humans is not such a mystery to me anymore.