Mid Semester Reflection

The blog that I have found to be most interesting so far is this semester is Marc Anderson’s. I enjoyed how he updated his blog with the work that he has done because it is humorous and enjoyable to look at. He has a great talent in character drawings and his concepts are relevant to today’s topics.

Im not much of a blogging fan, I do however enjoy the fact that I am able to see fellow student blogs and check the things they have updated. I enjoy viewing other student’s work and watching the progress they slowly make. I also believe that it is a great way to keep updated on what others find interesting as art.

What I find frustrating with the blogs is having to update them. I enjoy using them but I don’t enjoy having to find something to post just to keep up with the once a week update and comment routine. It keeps me busy but having to find something to update my blog with becomes distracting and eventually the only thing I have done is sit on my computer wasting time.

There is not really anything that I would like to post that I haven’t. I feel that if I found something interesting to share with others I would not have any hesitation to post it.

As far as comments I feel I could leave more, I am trying to leave comments that I feel are necessary and useful as opposed to leaving comments that critique little and finish with expressing their likeness of the work.

With others commenting on my posts I have replied back as quick as possible if it was necessary. However I have not had many comments left on my blog to be able to respond back.

If I could choose a blog assignment I think that it would be to have someone walk around with a camera and take pictures of whatever they could find, then choose one picture out of the bunch they enjoyed the most and why. It sounds like a silly assignment but it would be interesting to see what images people captured and what they chose as their top image.

As far as my blog this semester I believe that my image quality is real well but I could work on the scaling of the images so they are more formally presented. With responding to other students and their blogs I do believe that I could comment more often on other students work and the progress that I might possibly see being that I am in the same class. The responses that I have left so far were long and critical which is how I had been trying to make all my comments. My own blogging has not been updated as much as I feel that I could have, the challenge I was having was finding things to update my blog with. I know Amy gave us ideas of what to post so I tried to leave posts of websites I found were useful for fellow art students and homework assignments I had in other art and design classes. I feel that when other students look at my blog they are able to see my progress as an artist but they only see the life drawing progress that I have made. I took the life drawing class to force myself into learning how to draw the human body (something which I feel I am not very successful at). I do believe that I have learned so much more useful information in this class that I could use in my future as an artist than I could have learned in any other class. I find myself becoming frustrated at times in this class with learning how to view the body in different ways and portraying them properly on paper. When I leave the classroom I feel that have learned so much because I am challenged every time I attend class. When others see my blog they probably see me as a progressing artist slowly learning my way through college. I would like to update my blog more often with things that I find interesting in my life to help others see how I truly feel as an artist. 

Inspiration

Deviant Art

I love being able to view other works of art. The best place I have found to browse what people are up to these days is Deviant Art. It’s a great website to browse through artwork that people submit freely and have the option to sell. Its also a great place to submit your own artwork and learn what other people think of it by leaving comments or others adding them as favorite artworks to their own profile selections. Deviant Art is a great website to let yourself and your artwork be seen by others outside of the classroom, friends and family area. This is a great place to receive inspiration for homework or just to see the talents of others around the world.

40 Minutes Later

The drawing above is the 40-minute drawing we did in class on Thursday October 23. The pose we were given was tricky at some angles. The leg and angel of the knee was hard to establish on the paper but once Amy came around she instructed me to focus on the negative space between the knee and elbow which helped significantly. The pose was extremely difficult and tiring for the model as well so he had to break 15 minutes into it which as we all know is a difficult task to render into the drawing once the model has moved. He had to be placed in several different angles before most of us were comfortable with where he was. I adjusted my drawing at least 4 times in the back, leg and arm before I felt somewhat comfortable with the proportions and the angels. Then what do you know, class was over.

Group Together

What we discussed in our blog group was that we learned that the Gluteus Maximus was supposed to be slightly longer than what we built it to be. We found out through research that we were missing the Iliac Head. We also learned that the IT Band is a tendon and not a muscle.

60 MINUTES

The first drawing is my sixty-minute drawing that was done in class. As you can see it is fairly light. I feel as if I could have emphasized in some areas the level of pressure that was at some points such as the hand resting on the hip and the knee resting on the ankle. The first line I drew was the line of axis directly down the spin and following down the legs. I started forming the rib cage after the line of axis than followed with the pelvis and lastly the stomach muscles. I felt in this drawing that I was slowly heading down a positive direction as far as making it look like the actual model.
The second drawing is the ten-minute drawing that we were to compare to Amy’s. In her drawing she started with a line of axis and worked her pelvis and ribcage. Finally she led to a light outline of the entire body to pinpoint the use of the page and the proportions of the body. It was hard to create a line of axis for the angel I was at with the pose. Looking at the drawing I see more of an outline than a beginning layout of the pose. When I look at it the angle and appearance of the legs I am misconceived by the perception of depth. The leg looks like it is on the wrong side of the body. Overall I feel that seeing how Amy slowly plotted out the body line by line proved to be more accurate as opposed to a direct line

Clay Muscles

In the first picture you are able to see the Spinalis Cervicis which is at the inside top of the neck. This muscle is what extends the cervical vertebrae. Its attachments include the cranial and caudal. On the outside of the Spinalis Cervicis is the Spinalis Capitis that extends the cervical vertebrae and head; laterally flexes and rotates the head. Its attachments include Cranial and Caudal. The third muscle connected to the spine is the Spinalis Thoracis, which is directly below Cervicis. The Thoracis muscle extends the upper lumbar vertebrae and de rotates the thoracic vertebrae. The attachments include Caudal and Cranial. These muscles seem to be very difficult to understand. Being that they were the first muscles to be applied to the manikin once they were laid out the rest quickly became easier to attach and understand.
Also visible from the back view is the Longissimus Capitis. This is the twisted muscle at the top of the neck and is also what extends and laterally flexes the head and cervical vertebrae. It also rotates the head to the opposite side. Its attachments include the Cranial and Caudal. Out of every muscle built on the manikin so far this muscle has definitely been the most difficult. It took me much time to understand the direction of the twist but once I felt comfortable with it the muscles following that one became surprisingly easier to understand. The next visible muscle is the Longissimus Cervicis with flows underneath the Capitis attached to the Cranial and Caudal. This muscle is what extends and laterally flexes the cervical vertebrae. Following the Cervicis is the Longissimus Thoracis. This muscle is attached to the Cranial and Caudal as well. It extends and laterally flexes the lumbar vertebrae. It is also the rotator of the thoracic vertebrae.
The last set of muscles visible with the back view is the Iliocostalis Cervicis. Difficult to see, it is at the outer region of the neck and back attached to the cranial and caudal and is similar to the Longissimus in how it twists. The Cervicis is what extends and laterally flexes the cervical vertebrae. Also visible is the Iliocostalis Thoracis attached to the Cranial and Caudal as well. This muscle is what rotates the thoracic vertebrae to the same side. Finally we have the Iliocostalis Lumborum which is the triangle looking muscle attached to the Axial and Pelvic. This muscle extends and laterally flexes the lumbar vertebrae. It is also the same side rotator of the lower and thoracic vertebrae.
The second image is the side view of the manikin. In this view we are able to recognize the Spinalis Cervicis, Spinalis Capitis, and Spinalis Thoracis. We are also able to see the Longissimus Capitis and Cervicis. Also we are able to see the Iliocostalis Cervicis and Iliocostalias Lumborum. Lastly we can see the Obliques Externus Abdominis or External Obliques. These muscles are attached to the Axial and Pelvic. They are responsible for flexing the lumbar vertebrae, it compresses the abdomen and the opposite side rotator of the thoracic vertebrae.
With the front view of the manikin we can see the External Obliques again and lastly the Rectus Abdominis. These muscles area attached to the external surfaces of the cartilages of ribs – axial and the pelvic. This muscle is what flexes the lumbar vertebrae and helps to depress the ribs and compress the abdomen in forced expiration. The only frustration I had while building the clay models was the neck area. The Longissimus Capitis was the muscle I had a great deal of trouble with. I didn’t understand the twist that it had so I had to completely redo the neck area about 4 times to get it right. Thankfully once that muscle was completed the other muscles surprisingly became much easier to understand and build. These muscles have so far taught me how the form of the body is underneath the skin. The back muscles curve in towards the spine and the neck muscles are small but circular and what rotates the neck in its many directions. In the next clay assignment I think that I will approach each muscle by molding a flat piece of clay and sub placing it in it’s about location and cutting it to form its accurate look and feel. The next time draw I will definitely be applying the view I have of the muscles to the form of the outside body. I will be thinking of how the muscles underneath the skin lay and how the body can and cant look simply because the form or use of a muscle. For these muscles I only used the atlases that were suggested by the teacher and provided by the school.

Pelvis Sketches

This assignment was to sketch from three old master drawings the skeletal pelvis of the image. The book I used was the same German book called Aktzeichnungen Grosser Meister that I used to get the rib cage sketches. The first sketch was from a drawing on brown paper by Raffaello Sanzio on page 20. This is the ¾ image of the pelvis that I used. The second sketch is the foreshortened view of the pelvis. Michelangelo Buonarroti sketched this master drawing seen on page 42 using red chalk. This sketch of the pelvis was slightly more difficult of the three for me. I had a difficult time imagining the view of a pelvis from below. The third sketch is the straight on view of the pelvis. I took it from a sketch by Pietro Perugino on page 24 and it was drawn on brown paper heightened with white.