Fourth Week (Life Drawing)

This week in Life Drawing, we were given two new assignments. The first assignment was to build the abdominal muscles on our skeletons. The names of the muscles we were instructed to build are the quadratus lumborum, obiquus externus abdominis, and the rectus abdominis. These muscles were much easier to build than the first ones. This was probably for a couple reasons. First of all, this time I was more used to working with the clay, the book and the mannequins, and also because I am more familiar with what these muscles look like than the first ones we built.

The second assignment we were given was to do a drawing of the shell that we received in the beginning of the class. We need to first very lightly sketch an outline of it, then create cross contour lines that will create the actual outline. The drawing needs to be done on stonehenge paper.

In order to practice doing these things, we spent both days in class doing more gesture drawings on models. We had a lecture where we learned the muscles in the stomach so that we knew how to create them on the mannequins, and then we spent the rest of the first class going gesture drawings. The second day, we were instructed to attach a long pencil onto our drawing pencil so that we would learned the correct position to hold it, and to stand as far back as we can and draw as lightly as we possibly could when doing the gesture drawings. This was very hard at first, but it got easier the more I did it.

Then, at the end of class we did a long pose for an hour and a half where we used the technique of lightly outlining the figure then using cross contour lines to create the actual outline. It was actually fun to do, but extremely time consuming.

Third Week (Life Drawing)

This week in life drawing, we learned about the spinal column. We learned about how to draw the long axis which is the line that is going down the middle of the torso, and how to create the rest of our drawings from using that line as a reference point. For example, you can draw the long axis, and then you know where to start drawing the head because it starts at the neck, and you also know where to draw the lower body because it ends at the pelvis. The reason why you use this line to do this is because it always has a set shape to it. Because of this fact, you can use the curves to determine how the rest of the body is positioned. This was extremely helpful for me in improving my skills and knowing exactly what I am supposed to draw.

In order to practice these skills, this week we spent both days in class doing timed gesture drawings and we were required to start each drawing by drawing the long axis first. This was good practice for remembering to do this each time. This was actually really easy for me to do, and it made creating the rest of the drawing a lot easier.

The things that are difficult for me are remembering to use my whole shoulder instead of keeping my hand on the paper, and drawing the axis lines instead of drawing the outlines. Hopefully I will eventually get used to them. The reason it is so hard to not draw the outline is because that is what I am so used to doing. I have looked for the outline of a form every time I have drawn it. I have not really considered before what the inside of the forms that I am drawing look like. It is a very interesting thing to think about.

Second Week (Life Drawing)

This week in Life drawing, we had a model come to class one day and we continued to study how to draw the human form by doing timed gesture drawings, and ending with a long pose. The long pose seems to be a lot easier for me. As I said earlier, I think I am learning more and improving each day.

We also learned about the muscles on the human body. We had a session where the professor taught us the names of the muscles and how they are used. Then we were given a skeleton and clay and were instructed to use the clay to form muscles on the skeleton.

The muscles we needed to make this week were the Spinalis Cervicis, Spinalis Capitis, Spinalis Thoracis, Longissimus Capitis, Longissimus Cervicis, Longissimus Thoracis, Illiocostales Cervicis, Illiocostalis Thorasis, and the Illiocostalis Lumborom muscles. All of these muscles are on the spinal column going from the neck to the bottom of the spine.

Creating these muscles was definitely the most difficult thing I have done yet in this class. It was hard to translate from the book how the muscles were supposed to look in 3 dimension on the skeleton. The hardest part was the fact that the book only showed one muscle at a time so you could not see how to fit together. But after a long time, I figured it out.

Aside from it being difficult, it was actually fun to do.