Final Post - Good Bye!

We are done!!!  Our show was last Friday and I just picked up my portraits and large skeleton from the show room.  Now I am supposed to comment on the final product and my experiences in the class.

I am very happy with the final product here.  I ended up having to reposition the right leg to fit the whole skeleton onto my paper, but I think it turned out polished anyway.  The only problem I have is it looks like my skeleton is in a very awkward position....like he's riding a horse or something!  Not my ideal position to draw and I wish I would have stepped back and actually looked at what repositioning the leg would do to the final drawing. Shoulda woulda coulda.

Anyway, some of the things I am the most proud of this final drawing are the shoulder blades, which I took great care in finding the contour lines and making it look as detailed and not flat as possible, especially the left shoulder blade, which actually looks as if it makes a sharp curve around the rib cage, which is what I was going for to make the whole skeleton look true to it's three-quarter view.  I think the angle of the shoulder blades and collar bone set the tone for the rest the drawing and how far back in space some of the structures went as well as how far forward in space the others came.  I am also proud of the fact that I found some separate bones to draw from close up and personal, like the right hand and the right leg and right foot.  I think this helped me capture the detail necessary for those structures that were forward in space and warranted such detail.  I am also happy that I did not skimp out on finding the structure in the end.  I really pushed myself to mark out the plane changes even in the left arm & hand and left leg & foot even though they were so far back in space that I could not add too much value or contour lines.  I am also proud of the tail bone because this was probably the most difficult bone to see from my position in the room and I got a work out walking back and forth trying to find the structural changes necessary to get the correct value changes, which in the end I ended up not needing as much because I was so proud of my contour lines, and this was such a mid-spacial structure, I didn't want to add too much value anyway.  I am also proud of how much I pushed myself to darken those structures forward in space while being able to go back and work light in those farther back in space structures.  It was difficult for me to do, but because I did it, the drawing looks quite polished and makes sense even though I had a challenging position to work with.

I enjoyed this class immensely, I always enjoy pushing my artistic skills and developing my style.  Finding correct form is such a necessary skill in my field that many designers do not even consider.  Even if you are creating an animated character, if you do not think about the form or the structure you will have problems in the actual animating process because the different structures will not seem believable in movement as a cohesive unit.

Thanks Amy!

Skeleton Drawing Week 3 (for Dec. 19)

Okay, rush time!  I hate that it comes down to the grind and I feel rushed to get things on the page.  On Monday I worked through the entire rib cage and the rest of the spinal column.  It went okay after Amy helped me with the spinal column.  After a while I decided that the bones did not have to look absolutely perfect, as long as I knew what was happening to them and how they generally move and are structured it is okay that they are not perfect likenesses to the bones on the actual skeleton.  Duh.  Why did it take me that long to figure that out?!  I'm a perfectionist, I'm not happy unless it looks exactly like the skeleton I'm looking at.

At this point it is unrealistic to draw this way.  I'm focusing more now on structure and understanding of how these bones fit together, which is actually more rewarding as I'm finding out that I may have to improvise and move one of the legs just to fit the whole skeleton as one piece on the paper.  I thought about chopping off the foot and drawing it separately, but in the end I knew I would not like that it was not a whole structure, so I'm planning on creating my own pose for the lower half.

On Wednesday I completed the torso, including hip bones and tail bone as well as the rest of the arm and hands.  I had to redraw the left hand a couple times, making it arch enough to look believable and like it was actually resting on something.  It was also difficult for me to go back to working light on that arm and hand to make it look like it was back in space, because - unlike my usual technique - for this drawing I'm finding I am having to push myself darker and darker in the front objects to make them appear like they come at the viewer in space.  This is very difficult for me - to not be tempted to go back and smudge in the dark spots to have them blend better because if I did, I would pick up too much material and the darkness would disappear.

I am very proud of the tail bone and right hand here.  I took a long time actually finding the plane changes on the tail bone and actually had to find a separate right hand and look at it close up for this drawing and I think it turned out better because I did that.

Skeleton Drawing Week 2

Hello again.  Continuing on with the "make-up" blog posts here.  The past week I had decided that enough was enough.  There were only so many times I could redraw and redraw again the long axis and framing of my skeleton before I would just have to bite the bullet and get going on really figuring out the structure if I ever wanted to add value tones, which I certainly did want to.  I wanted to continue with the style of drawing that I have thus far exhibited so I would definitely need to add value to my plane changes, which would take a good chunk of the time I needed to draw.

So this week I spent a lot of time on the skull, getting the sizing as close to what I thought would be appropriate to measure the rest of the skeleton from as possible.  It looks fabulous!  I'm actually quite proud of this part, but drawing the skull is second nature at this point so I shouldn't be too excited.  The most difficult part for me is yet to come...the dreaded spinal column!!!!

I began drawing the spinal column of the neck this week also, just so I feel more comfortable finishing the rest of it next week.  This is so hard for me!!!  First of all, I cannot easily see what's going on because the bones are so small and far away, I got a work out just walking back and forth from my drawing board right up close to the skeleton and back again.  I feel like my drawing so far is reflective of my other drawings this semester in a bad way in that I again am relying on value to show plane changes that I have not figured out for myself through structural study.  I am simply drawing what I'm seeing and making it look good to the viewer who stands a few paces away, to whom which my drawing probably looks great!  But come up close and they can see how sloppy my structures really are and how I simply do not understand the structure of each little vertebrae in the spinal column, or at least how to draw them on paper.  It is frustrating, but hopefully I can get some help next week with the rest of it.  The one thing that went very well this week are the shoulder blades, I'm actually very happy with how three-dimensional and touchable these turned out...probably because I actually used contour lines to help me find the values here.

Skeleton Drawing Week 1

It was the first week on our final project skeleton drawings and here are the spoils of my efforts.  Not much, I know, but I am finding out it takes an awful long time to figure out how exactly the whole form will fit onto the page.  You would think I would have no problem with a six foot piece of paper, well guess again.  I must have redrawn this sort of wireframe rending of the long axis and torso fifty times!  I am starting to regret choosing this weird and challenging angle.  I still don't think it's going to fit quite right, but since I spent all week on this part I really have to move on.

You may have noticed that I cut off the head in the photo, that is not by accident.  The head I drew there was so large I am embarrassed to put it on the internet! haha!  I think when I redraw the cranium and get the spinal cord drawn out things will piece together much better.  One thing I am proud of with this drawing is the long axis and tail bone I drew enough times that I think I got it just right.  Again, this is such a short post, but I just did not do enough to comment on this week.

Post for Nov. 21

This is the first of my make-up posts since I've been negligent to keeping up with posting regularly on Sundays.  This past week we bought our paper and set everything up for our final project: a life-size or larger rendering of the skeleton.  The assignment is to really pay attention to and learn the structure of the skeleton as well as emphasize plane changes with either cross contour, value, or a combination of the two.

I picked out and cut a seven foot sheet of dry wall and decided to stick with a six foot drawing, hopefully covering the real estate of the paper with as much skeleton as possible so it will be about 5 1/2 feet tall.
I picked a spot to draw that would be challenging because I really want to see what I am capable of in this class, now that I have a general style of drawing that I seem to gravitate towards and my skills are getting stronger as the semester has progressed.  We did not get a start on the drawings however, because it is right before Thanksgiving break and it would be best to have a fresh start when we return.

So my post here will be a little short, but I have been doing a little side research of the infant skull after Amy showed me a master sketch of one in one of the books in the classroom.  Here are some pictures I found.  The infant skull is vastly different from the fully grown adult skull, it is amazing!

The most obvious is the difference in the length  and prominence of the mandible.  It is much squatter on the fetal skull.  The frontal bone is much more prominent on the fetal skull and the whole structure is much more compact of course and so the bones tend to look like they don't quite connect and in a lot of cases they don't because fetal skull plates are still molding/connecting into their solid form up until they are 6-8 months old.  I love the way Leonardo da Vinci handles the infant head in his painting here, the roundness of the cranium and puffiness of the cheeks even though the cheek bones are not prominent yet, is perfect.  The jaw may be a little elongated, but it is darn close, especially if this is supposed to be an older baby Jesus, which it looks to be.

Portraits Week II

This week went a lot better, I will say right off the bat.  I don't know if I was just in a better mood to draw or what, but I was able to tackle the unconventional view with relative ease, with Amy helping me with only a few parts.  Here are what those were:

First, the hair.  Enough said, haha!  Well, Amy suggested I try to blend more like I did with Sara's 3/4 back portrait and so I tried.  I like the final result, but I will go back this morning before class and try to define some more of the hair because it still looks a little blocky and the overlapped piece of hair is super dark, which is great, but I would want the rest of the hair to be a bit more shaded as well so the transition is not so harsh.

Second, the ear ended up being WAY far away from the face so in all, her cranium was abnormally large as if gravity was pulling her hair and ear down and away!  So I drew in more hair and redrew the ear in its proper position and it pulled the composition together beautifully.  I was thinking there was something terribly wrong with the structure and it turns out that is exactly what it was.  I am so glad Amy caught and I was able to fix it in class quick before it ended so I could still have the model to do it.  Is this new ear as good as my original?  Not nearly.  I was very proud of my original ear and disheartened that I had to redraw so it just did not turn out the same.

3/4 front

After this unconventional view, I took a look at my two previous drawings and decided I desperately had to go back to my 3/4 front view and fix the shading, it just didn't look like I drew it at all, the style was totally unlike mine and even though I really wanted to explore other styles this semester, I don't think this particular one was successful.  Hopefully it looks a little better, I want to go back
and fix the transition from neck to jaw line.  It, like other aspects of my drawings, ended up too harsh and they almost look disconnected and overlapping, when in fact they do not do that on the live model.

Portraits

3/4 front

This week we worked on our final portraits on our good paper.  I began with the three quarter front view because I wanted to get those facial features out of the way.  In retrospect I probably should have waited because it did not turn out quite like I expected, again probably owing to the fact that I could have used a bit more practice before we started these.  I think it all went down hill when I started to shade the drawing.  I started with the darkest parts first, but I made the left cheek subtle, which makes the eyes look so dark and  raccoon-like.  It seems like an easy fix, though, so I will have to set aside some time on Monday during class to doctor it up a bit.

3/4 back

Second, I did the three quarter back view.  This one went much smoother, but Amy helped me to see a lot of the things I was doing unconsciously.  First of all, I drew highlights in the hair that were too sharp they started to look like stripes so she showed me how to fix them with an eraser (I still have a little work to do there).  She also noticed that I had a lot of thick lines in the hair that outlined and made the sections of hair look flat, I believe I did try to thin those up.  The one thing I still need to work on is the neck, you may have noticed it right away, I made it way too thin.  When you are working on the same drawing for a long time like these drawings sometimes you tend to miss the obvious while you figure out the details.  At least that is what happens to me.

old master portrait - Raphael

I researched a little on old master drawings since I don't have any of the books from class at my disposal.  I found one that I really like because it accomplishes what I am struggling with, shading effectively to show subtle form without harshness and clearly defining the light source by only shading one plane of the cranium.  

Face

nose

This week we all worked on facial features, focusing on the nose, eyes, ears and neck.  We modeled for each other, which I have to say was extremely difficult for me.  I think my body runs on pure adrenaline so sitting still for even a half hour made me so sleepy, I kept nodding off!  Drawing from a personal model where you could get right up close to see the forms and plane changes was helpful to me, especially since I have not drawn a face from life or even tried to draw a realistic face for over a year!

nose, eye, mouth

I had completely forgotten how to draw the nose, but thanks to Amy's guidance, I slowly figured it out after a couple of long poses.  I tried the eyes on the second pose and did a much better job at remembering the structure, but as far as how well I drew them, I will leave that up for comments.  I always think I can improve.  I also tried to draw the mouth even though that was not what we were specifically working on.  I felt that I would struggle the most with this part of the face as I did in Life Drawing 1.  As you can see, I struggled again, it is difficult to figure out how to show the roundness both of the upper and lower lip individually as well as get them to look like they wrap around the jaw.  Mine look flat because I could not quite figure this part out.  The last section I practiced was the neck and as Amy said, we do not typically practice this enough so mine was a simple line drawing.  The neck muscles are so subtle, especially on women (as my model was) it will be easier I think when we do our final portraits to capture that subtle form  with shading.

neck

I only wish we could have had maybe one more day or even a half day to practice drawing the face before we started the final portraits.  On Wednesday we got our paper and learned more about drawing facial features, especially the neck, but let out early without starting to draw anything, which was great!  But in retrospect I could have definitely used the practice.

Awkward Views

I am very nervous for this test tomorrow on the skulls.  I have been thinking about it all weekend and trying to work out how I'm going to draw every view from memory, like what method I want to use to map out the skull and working out where the major points of the structure that I would need to draw out and how to find them from a framework such as the sphere and block technique.  After this I plan to draw a few sketches in my sketchbook to practice.  I think the 3/4 front will be the most difficult for me because of all the separate plane changes with the facial features while the back might be the easiest for because the plane changes are more subtle and may be a lot easier to define.

bottom 3/4 back

On Wednesday this past week we worked on unconventional views of the skull and they were very difficult for me to wrap my head around (no pun intended), but I think the main focus of the exercise was for us to rely not on merely what we saw, but using one of the techniques we have learned to find the structure first and then look at what we saw to find the rest.  I tried my best to look as little as possible at the skulls themselves and tried to draw from memory.  I did not do as bad as I thought I would have, but there were some parts (like the cheek bone and upper/lower jaw) that I had a lot of trouble figuring out and had to look frequently at the skulls and got some help on them as well.  The other thing I had some trouble with was remembering that the cranium is egg shaped.  With awkward views such as these, it was sometimes difficult to see that, so you would have to do your best to draw it that way.  I think I redrew the cranium fifty times on my 3/4 back and tilted view (which I included here)!

3/4 back tilted

Good luck to everyone on their tests tomorrow!

Assignment 2: Cranium

3/4 front cross contour only

For this assignment we were to draw 2-3 hour views of the cranium and focus on defining plane changes with contour and cross-contour as well as practice adding value to emphasize and liven these changes.  I found this assignment to be very difficult because it was the first time I have drawn a cross-contour drawing since Life Drawing I three semesters ago.  It took a while to get comfortable with the technique again, however I feel I accomplished getting a life-like quality with my drawings when I was able to use value.  I rediscovered that my use of value is in a very high key, which the class pointed out in critique as well.  I was for some reason under the impression that this was not the ideal because I lost the lighter lines to my audience when viewed from far away, however the class really liked this technique so I think I will 

profile value

continue with it.  One comment really stuck with me, that my back view looked like an exact photograph.  Now if that is a good thing or bad thing, I am not sure about, in one way it is good, because we are going for life-like structures, but it could be a bad thing because photographs can often hide some of the structure and the quality of the drawing may be increased if it looks more hand drawn and pensive of the cranium's specific quality.

The things that the class said I needed to work on was my ideas of some of the forms, such as where the cranium wraps down and under the cheek bone and is not exactly concave even though I and many of my classmates drew it that way.  Also some of the highlights on the top of the cranium, especially on my back view are not effective in showing form and may be incorrect.  Altogether, the consensus

back view value only

3/4 back cross contour/long axis and value

 was that I could have added or continued the value up onto the rest of cranium to show the plane changes, bone formations and accentuate the highlights.  That is what I really meant by my values being too light because I did not want to add value to too much of the cranium and flatten it involuntarily.  Overall I will try to find the bone structures and plane changes in the future and not be afraid to add value to very light in nature forms to create a more life-like structure.

Assignment 1: Skulls

3/4 front

I apologize ahead of time for not uploading the photos of my skulls for this post.  I have not had a chance to take them yet, but as soon as I do they will be here!  I was gone for critique for the Twins vs. Indians game (bad excuse, I know) so I received some comments and critique from Amy individually.

3/4 back

profile

When I look at my drawings I see that my skulls still look flat so I definitely need to work on showing plane changes with contour line work and more confident values.  My drawings are rather light so I can push the darks and lights even more to emphasize space and dramatize light and form.  I saw that where I put shadows and highlights for overlapping sections, it increased the feeling of roundness and three-dimensional form so I will work on doing that more in my next drawings.  Amy had similar things to point out.  My profile view needed the most work as I struggled to show a roundness to a view that seemed so flat, although the proportions and overall shape were accurate, I did not delve into adding value and contour as much as I did for the 3/4 back and 3/4 front views.  She noticed that my line work in the facial section of my 3/4 back view was good, but all the same line weight.  In my 3/4 front view we discovered that I made the jaw way too long, which is why I had so much trouble getting the teeth and Maxilla to look proportional.  She liked that I showed a definitive edge to the Occipital bone with very dark line and value in my 3/4 back view to show a clear plane change, but she also pointed out that my craniums were uninteresting, as were many student's in the class, because we were so focused on getting the shape and value of the facial features we forgot to show the very interesting plane changes of the cranium.  We are working on that for this next project, hopefully I improve those techniques quickly!

Concept Art

I missed critique on Wednesday last week so I apologize for not having comments on my work up on my blog yet.  Amy has instructed me to write about something that interests me perhaps in the multimedia design field so here it goes!  I should have my drawings up soon, though, for comments and I would love to hear them!

Lately I have been interested with concept art for animated characters.  This is more interesting to me because I always thought I was never imaginative enough to create characters and so I stuck to learning the animation side of production, but now I am branching out and loving the experience.

Last semester I created a feature film 2D animation story concept and included concept art for the main characters in my presentation.  I was and am still proud of these guys and I am thinking of taking this project further this semester.  That being said, I have therefore been studying a lot of concept art and especially enjoy that of the "Disney Greats" as they are called now.  I have included an image of a concept drawing of King Louis in Disney's A Jungle Book, which I enjoy because it shows the process of creating the eventual character used in the film.  The use of mark making to create texture and form is very effective here.  The other is one of the hundreds of character drawings generated for Disney's Peter Pan.  This particular one is a concept drawing for the character of Tinker Bell for whom the most time was spent discovering her characteristics.  This one was never used, but the detail and attention to form and anatomy exercised in this quick sketch is remarkable.  There is subtle contour in value changes that create a sense of roundness to the form and space and solidity.  The drawing kind of reminds me of our quick gesture drawings in class, you can almost make out a long axis line if it weren't for the wings and outfit.  My goal this semester is to improve my concept art with these techniques and implement them also into my story boarding, which are also very quick sketches that have to invoke action, emotion and ideas very quickly to producers.

Photos:
http://www.dvdinmypants.com/news/09-07/jungle_art.php
http://www.disneydreaming.com/2009/10/23/tinker-bell-concept-art/

Post Numero Uno

Hi!

Amy is right, a lot has changed since my last blog post on my other blog that I had.  I am still a Multimedia Design major looking to increase my understanding of anatomy and form in relation to the design of characters.  I am beginning my fifth year at UW-Stout and hoping to graduate in Spring!  I also have a minor in business administration, which I am hoping will aid me in obtaining a better job when I leave here as firms look highly on applicants that understand the business aspects of design.

Over the summer I gave birth to beautiful baby boy named Landon Anthony (I attached a photo of him in the hospital and a more recent one).  He was born May 31 at 5:49 at 8lbs 10oz, 21 inches long and has since grown to a whopping 15 lbs and 25 inches long!  He is in the 90^th percentile for both height and weight, that just means he is pretty big, but very proportional.  I have taken care of Landon all summer along with my fiancé, Brandon, but now he is off to daycare while I am at classes.  So far he is doing very well, and winning the hearts of all of his teachers!

I am also planning my wedding this year that is to be held Sept. 10, 2011 and working for UW-Stout as an EIS student worker in Millennium Hall.  I have found, however, that I am much better at managing my time and following through on projects before they have to be done, after this summer.  I do not know if that is due to being a mother and having to be extremely organized and at my best and brightest 24/7 or if that is just a natural part of growing older and wiser, but I like it!  Not to say it is not stressful at times, and I have spent many sleepless nights wondering how I can start school with a baby, but I take things day by day and get through with every ounce of energy I have.

More recently, my fiancé and I put an offer on a house in River Falls, WI and are eagerly awaiting to hear any news about the appraisal that is now being completed.  We are going to a Twins game later this month for which Brandon is especially excited and in December we are all traveling to sunny Florida for my grandpa’s 80^th Birthday party.  Landon will be about 6 months by then so we’ll see how that goes!