Here are some of the latest pics of things that we have done, I've been slow in getting them up, although you can also see them by clicking on the link to my flickr site.

When we created our first portraits in class and at home of our models, we were asked to post our comments and the comments we received here:

Kaitlyn, I noticed:

- the quality of line to create shadows

- gestures overlapping making movement

- all the lines are straight

- the neck always has a solid base

- lines start off soft and grow into more lines for more definition

- the lips

- the bones under the skin made through shadows

Erik, I noticed:

- heavy use of shadow

- strong lines

- flowing of the lines

- linear splitting of the face

- the use of highlights through erasing

- the quality of form created by shadows in circular forms

- thick and thin lines

- the eyes

Sara, I noticed:

- shadow through lines

- thick and thin lines

- light and dark lines

- the eyes

- the planes of the skull and face

- the gesture formed from the movement of the lines

- the ear on the left

What surprised you? What did you notice you hadn't seen before?

I noticed that my faces had no expression and the pupils were all the same color when they should have been darker to add some depth and made the eye look more round. This surprised me because it wasn't something that I had really noticed until we went to critique them.

What would you change?

The pupils to give the portraits more life and not so much of a blank stare. I would also change some of the shadows to make the person more realistic and placed in the correct area of where a shadow should be.

Flickr Link

Here is a link to my Flickr site that has my photos from class and a few explanations about it. Feel free to comment!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44270835@N02/

So far this semester I have learned quite a lot, but most of all I feel like this class has really brought me back to my roots of drawing and bringing my skill back. At the same time, I have learned a lot about the skull. In my Life Drawing I class I took in Scotland I just learned about the body forms, and not what is underneath them, so I really enjoyed that. I think the strengths that I have are getting a good idea of the form of a human head. I had trouble with the skulls, but I think once we added facial features to them I improved quite a bit. I also feel like I am fairly confident in my line drawing and quality, although I am the first to admit that I prefer to make shadows over lines. My weaknesses have been the far eye on all my drawings whether it is on a skull or face. I have been improving though, so I'm not a total loss. By the end of the semester I am hoping that we get to move onto the rest of the body. When I was in Scotland towards the end of our semester we touched on feet and hands, which is something I would like to focus on more, as I know that I had a hard time with them, but also that you can put so much life into hands and get so much personality out of them. We also did one huge full body life- size drawing. I know it really tested my skill, and it was something that I learned a lot from in trying to create all the correct proportions, making it look like the person, and overall, creating a quality piece where all elements were equal and one part wasn't any greater than another.

So far my plan for my second self portrait is so create something about me being on opposite sides of a line, one being the artist, and the other being a soldier in the Army. I feel like I am caught in between trying to figure out if I can fit into both at the same time, or if I should persue a career more in one than the other. Right now I feel like I am stuck in my own group of just me, alone, not being a part of either. That is what I want to depict in my drawing. On one side of the drawing I want to have a group of art students, possibly crunched over their work, maybe carrying art supplies, dressed as the excentric art students. On the complete opposite end I want a group of soldiers. I'm not quite sure what I want to do with them yet, if I should have them in a formation or fighting in a war scene, or possibly doing something else. Then in the middle I want to have myself. So far this is the hardest part for me to decide what to do. I'm not sure if I should draw myself as half soldier, half artist, or just regular clothes that aren't excentric, or a stick figure that is nothing to anybody. The entire drawing I want to do in a single-line drawing form, so basically all the figures are connected by one line.

So far I have done very little research. I was at first thinking of doing all the figures as cartoon characters, basically representing how I feel like all of this is beyond me and feels unrealistic to me, as I am just trying to live one day at a time, and not thinking about my future too much as I have only ever found it as something that is beyond stressful to me. So continuing with this idea I have been looking at cartoon characters to get ideas of what I want my people to look like. On the same side of that I take the Army very seriously, and hate the idea of offending any people that serve our country and are willing to die for it. So with this idea I want to do the drawing in a realistic form, mostly because I think it would look better. The only part that deterse me from this is that I am not all that great at drawing realistic looking human forms. Then I thought about drawing the artists as cartoons, and the soldiers as real people, but then I feel like it makes a disconnect in the drawing, and therefore something that I do not want to do. I want to continue with the research to maybe make a final decision on how I really want this to be drawn.

Life Drawing II Artwork

Ahhh, so I'm finally adding my own work to this!!! I know it's taken a while, you wouldn't believe what I had to go through! Haha, just kidding, but I'm glad I found a place where I can finally get all my work together for others to view. The biggest problem I've found in all my drawings thus far is that the far eye is always drifting away. I have been getting better though, so there is hope! So here are my drawings from class of what we have done so far, hope you enjoy!

So this first photo is of the clay skulls that we created in class.

I really had a hard time with it, for the most part because it was 3D, and there were parts that I just couldn't connect from my hands to my brain. The part that I had the hardest time with, as you can see, was the jaw. I wanted to give it the effect that it was popping out, but it just never ended up looking right, I'm not sure if it was because I didn't bring it back in far enough, or if I had it too high, but for whatever reason every time I went to fix it I'm not sure that it got any better.

This second photo is one of my first skull drawings. It is created from graphite. Not too bad, but you

can see that the far eye so

cket is popping out some. The other part that bothers me is that I tried to do it with free lines, but I feel like it just makes it loo

k unclean. The long I've been in this class I've kept using the same method but would clean up the lines after I was done, giving the drawing a more complete, clean effect.

This third drawing is one of my first using charcoal. I made the first one as a profile and then also wanted to learn how to focus from a different angle, so I also drew one from

the back. I tried a new style with this one,

and I think it turned out rather nicely. The free lines turned out well in making the shadows, and really gave me the effect I was looking for that is still rough and rugged but has the clean lines needed to make it look like the skull that it is.

This is my first "head-shot"

drawings. I think it turned out fairly OK, minus the far eye drifting away again. The eyes are also a different size, and a lot of the lines are heavy that I don't want there but were started out as outlines.

I also realized that I needed a base for the neck so it doesn't look so awkward. For the most part though I think I am starting to get the idea and still finding the structure of the bones under the skin, and it keeps getting better as I go.I

really like this back 3/4 view. The one part that I feel could have been pushed further were the dark shadow lines that I created, I feel like they look like spider legs or something. I also feel like the brow bone should be out further, but other than that I feel like I am finally getting the pro

portions correct and getting the effect of the shadows of the planes.

This is the homework we had to draw

somebody for 3 hours. At the time when I was done I thought it looked really good, but now that I have gone back I've found that there are a lot of elements out of proportion, an

d that the eyes have no expression. The one good thing is that you can see I'm finally getting that far eye to go in, but it's still not quite there.

This is the last drawing that we did with our model. I'm glad that my drawings are finally starting to look like people! I have the far eye in, and the angles are correct. I really like the nose that I created, showing all of its planar qualities. I had a hard time with the lips, but they turned out looking good, even if they weren't the same lips that the model had.

Other Artist's Work

So I finally took the time to look at other artist's work that I like. I can't ever say that I'm inspired by one specific person, but I see something and make my own view of it. At first when I was looking up some artist that I liked I couldn't really think of anybody in particular, so I just started looking at famous artists, and moved on from there. The first artist that I pulled a piece from was Monet. I've always appreciated his style, the way he can make a fuzzy image into something beautiful. I always pay attention to detail, so it's hard for me to see something fuzzy and create it into a masterpiece like he did with his lilies. It seems like the painting is in a totally different phase, like maybe in a dream. I would love to see this painting in real life, to experience the textures and layers within the painting. Taking a closer look you see that the lilies are in proportion, and catch your interest, so I think that it still applies to what we learn about seeing your subject, if it is in a different light, and make it into your own, something that other people couldn't see. Thats what I like about our different angles in class, everybody has a new perspective on the same subject in class.

The second drawing I found was a charcoal of one of my idols, Lucille Ball. I think she is a classic beauty who had style, personality, and a great sense of humor. It's an impressive piece created probably from a copy of a photo. This is something that is more my style, paying attention to the details and making perfect lines (this is something that I don't do!) Either way, I was very impressed by the perfection in this drawing.

The next drawing that I found that I liked is more of a style than the specific piece, but I really find Art Nouveau interesting. I can't say what it is that I like, but there's something about the flowing lines that 'get me'. I've always loved the style, I just wish that I could create something like that!

Now the next few drawings I found online are by an artist of the name Larry Boyer. I can't say that I know his work at all but I found them interesting. They are all charcoal drawings, done in the form of detail like I like. I also love his use of shadows and really using greys and dark tones to create depth.

Oh Blog, how I have been avoiding you...

To catch up, not a lot has happened besides that I've been busy with my classes and ROTC. One thing that I am glad we have been doing in our class is moved onto drawing heads, including skin and eyeballs and everything!!! This is more of what I learned in my Life Drawing II class, so I feel more comfortable with this, although I can tell I am rusty. It is good to get into familiar things once again, and maybe I will even find my groove!

It snowed today, so I can't wait to add the pictures I took up here! It really has nothing to do with Life Drawing, but it does have to do with my life!

Here is a skull I found online that I really like. it has great tonal variation and good detail on shadows and where light hits.