Midterm Already!

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     I cannot believe it is already the middle of the semester!  It is pretty amazing how much I have already improved with my drawing since the first day of class when I go through my sketches.  I can definitely tell how clueless I was on the first day.  I didn't know that I needed to start from the inside and work my way out instead of drawing an outline and working my way in. When I look over my collections of drawings I can see that one of my strengths is working with the rib cage, especially in my longer drawings. The torso is becoming more defined as I progress through the semester.  I also think I am getting better with my line variation with my longer drawings, but not so much in my gesture drawings which all pretty much are one thickness only.  Something else that is becoming a strength is my proportion of the figures.  When I first started out I didn't really know proportions well but after working with the pelvis and ribcage it has helped me understand the size of the torso.  My main weakness is still the pelvis area however.  I understand the proportion of it, but when I look at the model I have a hard time understanding how I am supposed to draw it because it isn't something that is really visible.  One more thing that is a weakness of mine is that I still have a slow pace in the gesture drawings and I would like to pick it up.  I think I need to learn not to think so much sometimes and just draw what I see and stop second guessing myself.

     When going over my manikin I know I said how much I hated it the first time we had to build muscles on it, but it is growing on me.  One of my strengths with that is I have patience to work with it so I really focus on all the shapes and connections of each muscle and trying to understand how it functions in my own body.  A weakness of the manikin is making the quads look like they are supposed to.  There are so many muscles and it took me a while to understand the position of each.

     There are a lot of things I would like to learn and get better at by the end of the semester.  Besides the weaknesses I talked about above, I would like to learn how to draw feet, especially when I need to foreshorten them because they tend to look like ducks feet.  One more thing is I would like to improve my contour drawings and understanding the surfaces of the body. Overall I really enjoy where this class is going and I am glad I chose to take it.

For our muscles this week we worked on the legs doing the quads and hams.  I spent my Saturday night constructing muscles while the rest of my friends went out, somewhat lame I know.  I was really interested in doing this one even though it was a lot of muscles to deal with.  I never really realized how many muscles were actually involved in making the leg work, I just always assumed it was a few big ones.  

As far as the drawing went this week, I was really frustrated with how things went.  We were looking at the pelvis and it never really clicked for me.  I can stare at a skeleton forever and try to understand it, but when I look at a person I cannot see the shape, so my good week before pretty much flipped around.  I am excited to start drawing the legs though, because they have an interesting shape I think.  Until next time, I'll be carrying Ted (my roomates named the maniken) around trying to keep him dry from all the rain.    

This week we worked on developing the rib cage.  Previous to this we continued our clay models and added some abdominal muscles and I have to say I am starting to like it a little more than I did last time, perhaps because I only had to do three instead of nine.  This week as a whole has been much better for me and I am actually starting to think I am getting better at this drawing thing and understanding the body a little more.  Now that we did the rib cage, my drawings are starting to look a little more filled out rather than flat and only outlines.  I have to say that about the class too, I can tell a huge difference than when we all started and it is kind of exciting!  I get a little jealous when Amy (my professor) comes around and can instantly see the problem and add just one little line and it makes the whole picture better.  I hope I'll be that good someday.