Life Drawing. Spring 2010.

Pictures from my Life Drawing class that I've been taking at UCM. In no particular order, but with a little explanation under those I can talk about.

Starting off with the skeleton. All of it at first, then we'd go on to break it down and put it back together again.

Another skeleton drawing.

Focusing on the spine in this class.

And then the ribs in the class after that. Volume was a bit of an issue, but it was great to try and create the idea of space in a picture.

First life drawing. The back. I used the class times to get back into finding my line work that I had achieved last year.

Another class, another model. Looking at the front of the torso.

Homework - posterior view of myeslf.

Homework - lateral view of myself. Looking at line more than value.

Homework - anterior view of myself. Again looking at line more than value.

Torso in class. I was trying a different style and I thought it was quite nice until my lecturer told me it made the model look like bronze...

Homework - skeleton arm.

Extended arm.

Foreshortened arm.

Skeleton legs.

Foreshortened legs.

Extended and foreshortened legs.

Skull.

Interlude.

The face. Not that accurate in terms of looking real, but I liked the way it turned out. If I were to push it I could comfortable find another style to work with.

Another face. I was pretty happy with this one.

The last piece I've done to date. A 9-hour pose in graphite. At the end of 6 hours I ended up erasing pretty much everything and starting again. I wouldn't say that this is a 3-hour piece, but it's when most of the work was done!

Homework. Hands.

Homework. Feet.

More hands.

More feet. Gestures with pen. Because I wanted to.

Arm.

Gesture arms.

Gesture legs.

Gesture arm again.

An idea for my last set of homework. I have to draw one piece from an extreme angle; one from my reflection, but I have to be touching the mirror and two self portraits looking down at myself.

Another homework idea. Combining the three homeworks. Looking down, touching a mirror and a reflection.

Extreme angle.

Extreme angle.

From this one down, they are gesture drawings. Charcoal on newsprint. 30 seconds or so.

The things that I have not posted here are the four homework pieces that I'm working on and the final piece that we started today. For the final piece, I'm doing a three part narrative (maybe more parts). One of the drawings is a self portrait looking down, one is from an extreme angle and one can be from a photo reference.

Drawing II. Spring 2010.

Drawings from the semester of Spring 2010. Drawing II class. In no particular order, but with some explanations as to what they are.

One of three in a narrative series. The best one of three. I drew a bottle throwing a ball into a bowl.

The first exercise of the class. Extended line drawing. Finding the angles and lines of objects and making then go from page edge to page edge.

Obligatory doodles on the side of one of my class pieces.

Using line weight and line direction to lead the viewer through a piece.

Perspective 101. One point.

Two point.

Homework using line weight to lead the eye through a piece.

Homework.

Charcoal - my least favourite media. Additive and subtractive drawing with charcoal and an eraser.

First use of pastel! It was pretty fun.

Second pastel! Also pretty fun. I enjoyed getting the hang of how the pastels lay their colours down.

Another class piece. I was wanting to focus on a couple of objects as opposed to taking the whole thing in.

Interlude.

Graphite still life.

More graphite. More still life.

Experimenting with atmospheric perspective. Essentially making the things that are further away look more faint. And a doodle.

Straight drawing from class.

The first ideas of a piece of work based on a Master copy. I was looking at Degas and his ballet dancer pictures. This was the first sketch I did. He draw on a coloured board, so I grabbed a piece of cardboard to experiment with.

It worked well. I wasn't sure what to think about the texture, but I went with it.

A bigger one.

They just got gradually bigger.

Whilst this one was bigger, I also tried using the grain of the cardboard going vertically instead of horizontally, which is what I had been doing until this point.

My biggest test piece. About 3 feet square. Maybe.

A Master study of the piece. Graphite.

The finished piece. You can see the Master copy on the left. I was pretty happy with it. Very happy with it, in fact.

I haven't pictured the last project because we haven't started it yet, but I am going to to a diptych with a picture of me looking up at the picture and another one of me looking down at the picture.

I have not included one picture here, as I got it mixed in with the Life Drawing work. The last few weeks of the Drawing II class looks at the figure - the head in particular. That is with my other drawings.

One more.

Here are a couple of other pictures of a painting I've done. Considering I've only been learning for two months, I'm pretty happy.

Before:

After:

Go to:

I have got a lot of links to put up on the delicious tags at the top right of my blog page.

http://drawn.ca is one of the best sites I have visited in a long, long time. Do yourself a favour and get there now. Don't wait until I upload different links. Find them yourself. You will not regret it.

Paint

This semester is the first time I've ever seen paint on a palette, let alone used it. That being said, it's pretty fun to mess around with.

It's an odd feeling, trying to do something you can't do. I've been drawing with a pen for years, now and I've forgotten what it was like to make the transition to that from pencil. I've been drawing since I was two, apparently, so sitting down and being told how to make art is something that I'm having to get used to.

Nevertheless, I shall strive to learn as much as I can. ... which means I should probably head back in to my lesson.

Here's an egg. This may be as big a picture as you'll get at the moment, but I don't think you'll mind. It looks better this way, anyway.

Gribblies.

Little bottle cap gribbly. Inspired by a thread I post on over at somethingawful.com - I decided to make a little monster out of two bottle caps and a fair amount of string and thread.

I'll make more. I'll try giving it a mouth sometime, too.

It also looks pretty nice upside-down, too. With the little tongue hanging off the edge of something. I'll get a shot or two of that.

Sock drawer.

It's been a little too long since I made a post here. But here I am. Hopefully this will be a more frequent occurrence. I even updated the Delicious tags! Joy!

A few doodles for ye.

Well. Not all doodles. Here's a basic put-together of a sculpture I did a while back. It was really good fun working with wood and big tools and sharp objects. What could be better? Well. I'm starting a bronze casting project and a welding project. That could be better.

Some drawings of what I was thinking about doing for my current sculpture project.

I went with this. Or something pretty similar. I'm working with a chicken wire armature and covering it with burlap and plaster. It's pretty good fun. But I want to cast bronze.

My first venture into Sculpey. I can only get better.

And here's a frog that I drew a few months ago. It's pretty big. I forget the size. But it is.

I've recently found myself with a penchant for Cream Soda. Because of this I am accumulating a good number of bottle tops. I love them. I'll have a photo next time of one thing that I'm going to be doing with them.

I also have two pieces going up in an exhibition soon. When I get photos of those I'll put them here too.

Hope you like. There's more to come. I just need to photo it. I'd rather keep it in bite-size nuggets. That way you don't have to trawl through masses of pictures every time I post.