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.
