6th Post/Life Drawing

Feet, Feet, Feet!  Learning how to draw feet is similar to trying to draw a space ship, in my opinion.  Also, feet are a very strange and awkward shape, in comparison with the flow of the rest of the body.  Feet seem to be bulgy or stretched and stubby yet bony.  I think that drawing the plains of the foot has really helped me capture the general shape of the foot and that following each bone down to the tip of the toe has helped give the foot a realistic feeling, rather than having ‘sausage toes.’  I think that knowing where the bones are, knowing the shape of the bones, and knowing the size of the bones is becoming more critical and visible now that we are drawing feet.  It’s much easier to understand how to draw a foot once you understand which bones go where and which bones do what.  When I draw I have been ‘grouping’ the smaller four toes together and leaving the big toe on it’s own.  I think that by doing this I have given a more realistic sense to the foot because they do have different muscles and they also have that unordinary gap between the small toes and the big toe.  There is a definite space in-between the two.  I think I will be bringing an eraser to class from now on because so far this semester I have only carried my kneaded eraser along to class.  The kneaded eraser has always proved useful in my past drawing classes but I think that a white eraser will be much more beneficial for what needs to be done in my drawings.  I think that in the long run in will be a much easier and rewarding tool to my drawings.

MidSemesterrr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/60163718@N02/

5th week of Life Drawing

HIPS HIPS HIPS! This week of Life Drawing was mostly about discovering and learning about hips (for me anyways).  Looking at earlier drawings that I have done when I was younger I noticed that I was completely wrong when I would locate the hipbones on my figure drawings.  My hips were much lower in my older sketches.  After finding that the “wings” of the hips are much higher than I thought, my drawings have taken a more realistic and proportional form.  Also learning the shape of the hips from the front, back, and sides has also improved the proportion and figure of my drawings.  I also have caught myself up on my model.  Since I was absent all last week I was a little bit behind on my model but was able to get up to speed without any confusion on muscles placement and proportion (which is good news).   I feel like my drawings are gradually becoming lighter, which is good for me because multiple teachers have told me that I am quite heavy handed.  So drawing/sketching lighter is most definitely a positive change for me.  I have noticed that my perspective as become more and more real and in better proportion in comparison to my older figure drawings.  Although depicting which angle arms and legs are coming from is in need of a little more work and practice.  The longer drawings are also kind of frustrating because one-minute drawings are much quicker and much easier to over see small mistakes.  The one-hour drawings are more frustrating because I have time to point out and fix mistakes in the drawing, rather than just drawing for a quick 30 seconds and ignore mistakes because I simply would not have any time to go back and fix them.

3rd-4th week of class

Well since I was gone over the last week I figured I would get into details about my third week of Life Drawing and talk about my absence (which still involves art).  The clay models are becoming more fun and ‘do-able’.  I almost like working on them, although I have begun talking to my manikin on a regular basis.  I am starting to believe it’s kind of cool and almost fun to see how each individual muscle creates types of movements.  While I was absent this past week, I was at a Funeral so I had the opportunity to hangout with my cousin, Dirk, who is two years older than me and is an illustration major at University of Minnesota Moorhead.  My cousin and I have always drawn pictures together when we were little, although he has always been better than me.  His drawings are amazingly detailed; most of his drawings are like looking at comic book pages that were redone in pencil or a ‘bic’ pen.  Dirk showed me some of his sketches and his sketchbook; they were full of quick figure sketches of people he sees in the Fargo/Moorhead area.  The sketches just looked like scribbles on a piece of paper but they were in perfect proportion and he was able to portray the person’s emotion through the figure without details. My cousin drew a few characters from a graphic novel he is making for his senior project.  Seeing his drawings always inspire me to sketch and draw everyday (even though I don’t).  He’s not a famous artist but I’ve always admired and looked up to my cousin for his ability to draw and his creative way of portraying characters he makes.  But I would have to say that comic books have been a major inspiration in both of our styles and drawing techniques.

2nd FullWeekOfClass

The second week of class has been very eye opening to my view of the human body.  First off, I would like to say how scared and excited I am to be working on a clay model as part of class.  Cleaning off the clay from the previous classes models was frustrating because of the small space and crevices of the skeleton model.  I will definitely be purchasing some type of tools for clay.  I think that in my case the clay tools will not only come in handy but will be necessary because I’ve been none to have clumsy hands and I would like to have a somewhat detailed muscle model.  I am scared to have the model because it sounds like a number of our drawings may be dependant on our own models.  If my model looks off or not proportioned then my drawing will probably reflect my clay modeling skills.  So far having the live model to view has been different.  I have never used a life model as a reference to draw from because I have never thought it was necessary but just from the few times we’ve had a model in class my insight to the human anatomy has already be improved.  Many of my thoughts about the map of the human body have been questioned and/or completely changed due to the model.  For example I feel like I have never seen hips, lower chest and lower abs of a human being before having this class.  All of the poses have shown me how a person is stiff and flexible according to which part of the body is being used.  The backbone has become particularly difficult to trace in good scale and proportion.  But I believe both the clay and live model will help me become a more realistic artist in general. Thanks for reading.

Intro. 1/31/2011

My name is Adam Daniels and I am an art student at the University of Wisconsin Stout.  This current semester is my fourth semester (2nd year) at Stout.  I am striving to be a fun and relaxed artist.  I don't like to do art that takes me a very long time to complete because the longer I work on one piece and focus on one image it begins to lose it's original value and reason why I began creating it in the first place.  My style is usually a quicker, light, almost childish style( or so I have been told  by previous instructors).  I have gratuitous amounts of fun looking upon and creating art, one of the biggest goals I have when a piece is finished is that it looks like I had a fun experience working on the piece.  Almost none of my inspiration comes from artwork I’ve seen in galleries or museums because when I was younger I never went to galleries or museums very often.  I was inspired by comic books, saturday morning television action cartoons, picture books, video games and toys.  Countless hours were spent trying to recreate every single “Thunder Cats” character or sketching ideas for comic book super heroes and actions figures.  My main man of the comic book illustration world is Jim Lee.  His illustrations are like miniature murals that I can never just glance over.  When I see his drawings I’m drawn to every never-ending detail.  The perfect style carries a certain feeling and attitude, different in all the characters he portrays in his books.  My style is the furthest possible portrayal of Jim Lee’s style. Unfortunately I am not as talented and have not put in as much time as the great Jim Lee.  My style is too sloppy and I feel that it’s not as exact and as well though out, as I would like it to be.  All of my art conveys my life style.  Somewhat laid-back, different, and enjoyable (to certain viewers).    My goal is to become a more clean cut, more precise and detailed artist but still maintain my child-like style.