More Skulls and other things

Last week Wednesday we had four drawings due. These drawings were a step up from our first three skull drawings, really focusing on mark making, making the whole skull look like one living moving drawing, and also making it look like it was alive and 3-d in space. To help us focus more on the actual shape of the skull we omitted the whole face and just looked at the cranium itself, the shapes and grooves that made it up. I found these drawings extremely challenging but also very rewarding because it forced me to look at these at first simple circular skulls, and turn them into complex shapes and planes. Instead of just looking at the lines of the skull I tried to think of the skull in planes and small shapes that sort of fit together like a puzzle piece.

I think I was successful in some areas of my drawings and not as successful in others. I’m really proud of my back view of the skull because I think I was really able to capture the 3-dimensionality but still keep movement and complexity in my marks. Also, comparing it to my last back view skull drawing, I can see a definite improvement in my understanding of the shape of the skull.

During critique I asked people mostly about my cross contour line drawing of my skull because it was the one I was least happy with, and I know I struggle with cross contour. Some drawing I and drawing II classes learned how to do cross contour drawings early on. I, however, never learned how to do them in my classes, so therefore I’m completely new to the subject. Even in Life Drawing 1 I struggled a little bit with the shell and bone cross contour assignments. Some suggestions I got about this cross contour skull drawings was to try to vary the angles of my marks (not having them all stem from the top of the head) and make sure that they all connect with each other in a way that makes sense. Also I got a comment of never having a cross contour line go fully horizontal or fully vertical, which I thought was interesting. I think cross contour will always continue to be a struggle for me and I will just have to keep working at it.