The end of the semester!

It has been a long journey but here now writing this post, I feel like I really have accomplished a lot in this Life Drawing II class and just looking at the images above make me really feel good about what I was able to accomplish and how much my drawing skills have changed. Overall I really can see how this class has influenced my art in my other classes, especially pertaining to my painting III class which I'm now preparing for my senior show. I paint the figure a lot, and sometimes nude, and to be able to do that one has to understand bodily proportions fairly well to make the figure and space seem believable. By going through the skull and the skeleton so diligently, learning every bone (over Lifedrawing I and Lifedrawing II) I have been able to produce much better work.

The first drawing above is my skeleton drawing, in which we were supposed to pick a good angle and draw the skeleton in its entirety to get the proportions correct and learn more about the skeleton as a whole. I had to keep re drawing my skeleton smaller and smaller just so that it would fit on the page and the proportions would be accurate. I started out using a very light pencil, 4H, and gradually worked towards conte crayon for the darkest lines/ shadowed areas. My main focus on this piece was getting proportions accurate, with shading being the least important aspect in my eyes. I worked really hard on my cross contour lines in this drawing, making them very light but still visible up close, adding to the 3-d aspect of the drawing. I can definitely see an improvement in my cross contour lines over this semester and I'm happy that I was able to add them successfully in this drawing.

The other pieces I have displayed above are just additional ones I was proud of. I really enjoyed creating the portrait pieces, especially the one from the "unique angle" because they challenged me. I also really enjoyed the skulls from the different angles too because it helped me understand the skull as a form in space, a 3d object, moreso than just lines and shading that I saw in front of me. Only with understanding that was I able to create a believable skull laying on its side.