Large Scale Shell #1

I had a lot of fun using different 'medias' and styles for my shell drawing this week. I played around with a very dark charcoal, the charcoal pencil and I also used an eraser in my drawing technique this week. I had a good time with it because I could draw very dark, something I LOVE to do!! I know that I shouldn't draw so dark sometimes but I decided that since we are doing 3 large drawings total, I would try a different style for each!
...more later

Trip to the Twin Cities.

Yesterday we went to the Twin Cities for a life drawing field trip. It was a lot of fun to get out of Menomonie for a while and see some very nice exhibits. First, we went to the Bodies exhibit at the Mall of American in the morning. I have seen a similar presentation before at the Science Museum when I was in high school but I still thought that it was very interesting! At first I felt a little bit queasy when we first got into the exhibit for some reason but I felt fine as we went further along into the displays. I found myself drawn to looking at the area where the heart was displayed, the fetal development area and the final body of the exhibit was the one that I ended up sketching on. It was interesting to think about the contrast between what we normally draw and the insides that we saw there at the exhibit.

Next, we headed to the M.I.A. to view some art. I had fun looking around with some other students. We mainly looked at the Louve exhibit and Native American art. We found that we kind of ran out of time because that place is so big! It was a very fun day and I had a nice break from campus.

Everything is Design.

This past week we worked on many things in class. I found it difficult to re-do the muscles on my manikin and the process proved to be hard for everyone. It definitely helps to look online though. I found some pictures online to help me with the making of my manikin muscles. I think that it will help me the most to look at different segments of the body, one at a time and then look at a picture of all of the muscles together s a reference afterward.
This week, we also started to start drawing some much longer poses in class (1-1.5 hours.) I feel like this is a big challenge for me but it will be good to push myself to draw longer.
More later...

Now it's November..

It's amazing how fast time flies! I feel like the semester just started and here it is, November already. These past few months in Life Drawing have already taught me a lot but I am just surprised by how they have flown by. This past week in life drawing, we worked on our manikins, trying to get the proportions of the leg muscles done better. Then, on Thursday, we all shared our midterm portfolios in class. It was nice to see where everyone is at and how they are feeling about the class overall. I think it was nice to have a review at this time because we will be able to look back later and see where we were at, at this point in the semester. I look forward to class today and for the rest of the semester. Hopefully my long pose drawings will improve soon!