Week 2/3

This week in life drawing, we were assigned our first assignments. A contour drawing of a shell that we had been given the first week of class, and the spinal erector muscles on our little skeleton models.

The shell drawing was a little more difficult that I had expected. A larger shell would have been a better model, but that was the consensus of the whole class I think. In the critique that we had during class it was said that I needed to work with my lines to make them more cohesive. And I opted to pay attention to the small details, and draw all of the ridges in the shell which I was advised to possibly ignore in the future. I also need to work on being able to draw with lines WITHOUT drawing the outside edges first. I think if that was my one goal in drawing the shells this semester I would be happy.

The second assignment we were instructed to do was to model our spinal erector muscles out of clay. I found this assignment VERY frustrating. It was difficult to know where exactly to put things just from the pictures even with every view under the sun at your disposal. I wish the books build up the muscles like we had to in our assignment because it doesn't show you how the muscle you are trying to build interacts with the muscles around it. I have a feeling that I might have to reconstruct some things... but overall I am content with my current results.

As for drawing models this week, I don't have much to show. Tuesday I was chosen for the first group of critiques on the shell drawings, and that took up enough of the class time that there wasn't enough time for me to get a good batch of figure sketches. Thursday we had a lecture period, which I will admit, 3 hours of lecture is EXTREMELY hard to sit through... even with a break. But we'll see. Maybe I just need more coffee from the morning.