Finale

Final Maniken

Final Gestures

Final Long Drawings

I learned a lot this semester. Seems cliche to say that, but it's completely true. In high school I did a lot of self portraits and drawings of people, but I've never felt as proud of those as I do of the one I did for the final. I think it's because of the mirror, most of my other drawings in high school were done from pictures, so they don't have the same quality. Same goes for the human body. I did paintings from pictures in books, but they didn't have the same quality as the ones I have done from real life. A couple weaknesses I finally worked out in my drawings were long torsos and long legs. The drawings would just get away from me and grow down the page. But the maniken helped that. As I was drawing I would look over at it and see the muscles individually and I could fix the issues. The maniken also was helpful because I began to see the muscles under the skin easier. I can't watch movies with nudity or see shirtless runners without thinking of the muscle placement and their movement. Kinda strange. Another thing that changed the way I draw is the idea of the sausage! The little fatty part under the eyebrow but above the eye. That was the piece of the "eye-puzzle" I have been missing from all my previous experience with eyes and faces. Also using contour lines around the eyes and mouth make a huge amount of difference when drawing the face. I wish I knew this sooner.

Life drawing has been an amazing class, especially due to our awesome models, but also because of how this class will affect every other drawing of a person I do in my life. I know mountains more than I did at the beginning and I've enjoyed this class to the very end.

Midterm

Life drawing is still a fresh class for me. I still learn new things every day. Sometimes in other classes, halfway through the semester I get frustrated and lost, but not here. I keep applying what I've learned and keep getting new pieces to add to my knowledge. But recently I've been having egg/torso problems. I have the distance between the bottom of the rib cage and pelvis down pat, but my egg is slowly lengthening. But today I worked on the basics and by the time we started working on the 45 minute drawing, I got it back.

At first, I loved the gesture drawings more than the long drawings, my favorite gesture being this one:There's something so simplistic about the lines, but the form of the female is still there.

But now, the time and care put into the long drawings makes me love them the most.

This class doesn't rush me and makes me see the figure differently than I had before. Especially the idea that the femur curves forward. That was not something I knew before or thought was true, but it makes a world of difference when drawing the thighs.

I'm hoping to learn more about the shoulders in the second part of this class. I crave putting them in after I draw the egg because the male model gestures don't make sense without them. I feel like my eyes need the balance between the small waist and the broad shoulders. Also, I hope we learn to draw feet. I've NEVER been able to draw feel. They always look troll-like or too small to support the body.

It's been a long time coming, first drawing 1 and then 2, teachers tearing my way of drawing down to make me start from scratch.... and it has payed off. All that work has been worthwhile and I am proud of the drawings I make in this class.

Midterm Maniken

Midterm Drawings

Supertramp

Just now, as I was getting ready for bed, I suddenly had the urge to be the next Christopher McCandless... but without the dying.

1. The core of man's spirit comes from new experiences.

2. Happiness is only real when shared.

It should not be denied that being footloose has always exhilarated us. It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations. Absolute freedom. And the road has always led west.

Rabies Shots and Roast Chicken

Today my dog Jem needed to get his shots: rabies, bordidtella, lyme. The last time we went to the vet he did fine, but they did everything where I couldn't see....and I am a very curious person. This time, I told them I wanted to see all the shots and stuff, and they said that was fine! Apparently most people don't like to see things like shots happen to their fur babies....but not me! So first they took his blood and I got to help. I held his head against my knees and did this maneuver that made his vein pop up. My good boy didn't flinch through any part of it. Plus he loves all the ladies at the vet's, and they love him too. So far, Jem has only had good experiences at the vet's and I want to keep it that way. Now he's sleeping next to me on the couch, occasionally letting out a HUGE snore. Cute.

Yesterday my boyfriend brought a whole chicken home from the grocery store. Well, I love to cook, but I have never cooked a whole bird by myself before and I was worried I couldn't do it. But this afternoon I decided the best thing to do was to just get to it......and it turned out DELICIOUS! I was really proud of myself! I rubbed it with butter, garlic, lemon juice, herbs de provence and a little greek seasoning mix, and stuffed it with onions and rice. I also made mashed potatoes and green beans. It was like a mini Thanksgiving meal. Even Jem had some little bites of chicken. I fished for compliments throughout dinner and my boyfriend obliged me....but now there are dishes to wash, and luckily the rule of the apartment is "You cook... you DON'T have to clean."

Lucky me.

Complexities

Apparently there are many complexities in the creative personality. I was just stumbling and I found this information about their multiple characteristics.

Here are a few qualities, summarized:

• A great deal of physical energy alternating with a great need for quiet and rest.

• Highly sexual, yet often celibate, especially when working.
• Smart and naïve at the same time. A mix of wisdom and childishness. Emotional immaturity along with the deepest insights.
• Convergent (rational, left brain, sound judgment) and divergent (intuitive, right brain, visionary) thinking…
• Both extroverted and introverted, needing people and solitude equally.
• Humble and proud, both painfully self-doubting and wildly self-confident.
• May defy gender stereotypes, and are likely to have not only the strengths of their own gender but those of the other as well. A kind of psychic androgyny.

I can think of many art students that exhibit one or more of these qualities..... me too.

Contour

So, after I finished my cross-contour today I started a new drawing. I just couldn't let that great pose just be a cross contour (not that cross contours are bad)... I just wanted to draw everything. I also just finished the homework on the Maniken. It was kinda tough to put a 2D picture into 3D clay form, but I managed. It is a new experience to see individual layers and pieces of muscle. But it's nice to know what shape of muscle is under another, even when I can't see it.

Harlem

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore-

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over-

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

-Langston Hughes

Being myself is my dream deferred. Boom.

Observant

Etymology: curious, related to cure, once meant "carefully observant." Maybe a tonic of curiosity would counter my numb hand and drive my absurd mind to think in new ways. Absurd, by the way, derives from a Latin world meaning "deaf, dulled." Maybe life drawing will provide a therapy through observation of the ordinary and obvious, a means whereby the outer eye opens and inner one. Literally. This class will be a view into the body. And my view of the body will soon become a view of it's anatomy within. I will learn how the spine twists and turns and how it creates the core of our being. Drawing had become a little redundant and expected, but now, with a new figure and a new mindset, it has become eye-opening.... inside and out. Life seems ordinary and obvious because we experience it everyday. But life is truly beyond ordinary and obvious. We are here and breathing, and our body moves and reacts and grows through a will of its own. The body is not ordinary. It is extraordinary. I am now curious about the body. I am now carefully observant.

Today

Today was the first day of drawing in life drawing class...and I forgot my supplies. But my boyfriend came to the rescue with my forgotten tote bag and I returned the borrowed charcoal pencil to a friendly savior. For some reason, as we were waiting for the model to come out, I was butterflies in my stomach nervous. I think I was nervous for the model or something. But once she was up there and in the first pose, I relaxed. I didn't see her as a fellow student, I saw her as a tool for the advancement of my learning. She was something to draw and see and experience.

I did a painting in high school of a human back from an old anatomy book. I was a originally an anatomical sketch by Leonardo da Vinci. But it was curvy and beautiful and ever since then the back has intrigued me. The way it bends and curves and the way the underlying muscle becomes tight beneath the skin is mesmerizing. Amy said the first thing we would be learning is the spinal column and I couldn't be more excited. I am now more excited for this class than any other I have taken.

Food Invention

I invented a great recipe the other day, it doesn't have any particular measurements besides the rice, but it's easy to make. Here are the ingredients:

- Coconut Milk

- Soy Sauce

- Thai Tom Yum soup mix (if you don't have this you can just use ginger juice and some lemongrass)

- Rice

- Can of Straw Mushrooms, drained

-Broccoli, cut up into bite size pieces

- Water

- A few pieces of a white fish, like tilapia

- Spicy seasoning for the fish

- Olive Oil

First, start by getting the water boiling. I only made a few cups because this was a meal for 2, but you can make as little or as much as you like. This applies to all the amounts of every ingredient, as little or as much as you like. After the rice was half cooked, I put the coconut milk in a medium sized pot on medium heat and began to add the soy sauce. You want the color of the sauce (once mixed) to be a pale brown. Again, as much or as little as you like, but the soy sauce adds salt to the coconut milk, so if you like a lot or a little salt, it's your decision. Then I added a tablespoon of the Tum Yum Soup mix to this mix, which is like a paste. Once the mixture gets hot, the paste will dissolve and give the mixture a slight reddish tint. Then add the can of drained mushrooms and allow them to cook in the mixture, let the mixture heat to a boil. While this gets hotter, steam the broccoli in the microwave until tender. Lastly, prepare the fish with a dusting of spicy seasoning and place in a hot pan with a small amount of olive oil and cook until no longer translucent and browned. Now that everything is cooked and ready, prepare it in a bown by putting down rice, then the broccoli, then a piece of fish, then a heaping spoon of the sauce with mushrooms. Enjoy!

Today

I bought a book with a collection of photographs by a guy named William Eggleston - his pictures send me into a complete tizzy. They bring more surreal exaltation to what only an idiot might refer to as mundane southern Americana than any other photographs I've ever seen. I yearn to be there immediately: Greenwood, Huntsville, Knoxville, Montgomery, Memphis, anywhere any of the photos were taken. I want to live someplace sluggish and normal, near a truck-stop where he (whoever he'll be) and I will eat grits and drink coffee every morning. I want a little house with honey-colored walls and grandma looking furniture from the seventies, maybe an organ in the living room, a cheap painting of a saint above our bed, and Formica countertops in the kitchen. We'll pretend we're Baptists so we can go to their church on Sundays and hear the choir sing. He would be a writer, and I'd work as a waitress. Pudgy, perspiring men will give me an extra dollar tip because I'll wear my uniform a few inches too short, but that's as far as they'll push it because the whole town will know about him and me. We'll be recognized as the lovebirds - the sappy couple who hold hands, kiss, and never mow their lawn.