hmm...

This post is about the first environmental drawing that i have ever done. I started this drawing with all straight lines, after a helpful correction showing that it wasnt going to look anything like the thing in which i was trying to make, instead going with curved lines, in which would help get the mass of the object, i was off and running. Although i didnt finish it, I felt as if I had done a decent job at replicaing the adobe like house. i had absolutely no clue that i could even do this type of art..

not quite human....

While i feel as if i have a decent understanding of how a human is put together, i came to the startling realization that i dont have much of a clue what most other animals look like. Besides the recent studies of a human form, the only animal that i ever sat around and drew from observation where reptiles. Be it from my old pet iguana i had for 15 years that i just as of recently lost, to the animal hospital i worked at, they would let me take random breaks every now and then, and draw the reptiles that where in out care. so i have a decent understanding of reptiles.

Dinosaurs on the other hand, totaly mystery to me, i came up with a basic idea of the muscle structure of the velociraptor from looking at there skeletons, then taking from previous knowledge of how a reptile goes together, and coupled with my knowledge of actual human anatomy now, Ibeleive i am close to having an actual form that makes sence. Now if beleive if it is the way they where actually put together, probobly not. But it does make me happy that when i look at the raptor, it actually looks like it would be able to move.

before wrapping.....

To elaborate upon my last post. I decided to show the basic geometric shapes that i start with before I start adding muscle. The Greenish parts are the basic shapes in which you start with. The cool part about breaking things down so basically is that you can rotate them in any direction, then build upon that, and then you can have draw a figure from any angle, in any pose. The orange part is the second step, these represent the shoulderblades and the humerus. from here, I can add chest muscles and the arm muscles. and attach the deltoids to the traps, and attach the traps to the neck. from there, add obliques, abs, and back muscles if needed, and I am now on my way to having a clearly defined figure.

wrapping the flesh

For as long as I can remember, the bigest problem that I have had with drawing human anatomy, is how flat my final turned out looking. No mater what angle I would try to draw a picture from, and no matter how I shaded it, it looked flat. Ever since i have learned the basic shapes of the bones, and the muscle structure around it, it has become less and less flat. I never thought that drawing simple geometric shapes, and attaching muscles to the simple shapes would help so much.

Below, is an example of what i'm talking about. One the left, is a picture i drew in first term. (pre anatomy class) Even with the character rotated in 4 different ways, the drawing is still flat, and dosen't pop out at you at all. On the right however, is a drawing i did starting with simple geometric shapes, and from there i added the muscles to it. although I like the stylized comic style look, the more structural drawing that i did makes alot more sence. Its strange looking back and seeing how little I knew about how a person was actually put together....

Shadow Power!

This blog is about a technique shown to me ealier last week, and a lesson I learned along the way. This particular technique is all about making a simple 2 dimentional charcoal drawing pop off of the page. In class, we drew pictures of plaster heads with bits of clay worked onto the the plaster to illustrate the anatomy of a face (pictured above) My drawing turned out ok... I was actually about to trash it and start over, but my teacher told me to keep with it, showed me the few mistakes that i had made on the drawing, that was throwing it off, and it was fixed in no time with minimal lines. The drawing was still pretty much flat though. The next thing we did afterwards was the part that turned the simple flat drawing into something im actually proud of. We made a combination of half ink and water, grabbed bamboo brush, shut the lights off, and shined a small flood light over the head, casting a great shadow. All i did is paint on the drawing, Put on the darks where the dark was, and not leaving any gray area. Within 2 minutes of painting on the shadow, the simple drawing i did no longer looked like lines, and looked like a 3 d head. By far my favorite art project that i have done at the guildhall so far.

So to sum it up, The technique i learned, is how to rapidly create very 3 dimensional objects, and I did it all on something that i was about to throw away. The lesson I learned, is that no drawing is unsalvageable. If it dosent look right, take a step back, examine the problem, and then fix it! Its much easier to fix something thats mildly broken, than to try and start all over again.

Oops...

When it came to drawing a head, I thought that I had a pretty clear understanding of how it was put together. Even before we delved into said topic in class... Man was I wrong. Starting with the simple geometric shapes that made the skull, i was completely wrong. I thought the top or the cranuim was simply one rounded mass. Again, completely wrong. From the straight lines that form the shape of the skull, all of the way down to how big the face actually was, I was wrong. Not even to mention the muscles that go on top of the skull that bring out alot of shape into the face, completely wrong. The idea I had based in comparison to the lines that where given where toooootally different. below are examples of the notes I have taken in class.

The things that got me the most where the more straight lines that a skull consists of, and also the size of the face based in comparison with the skull. Now when I look around, I notice that that information is all aroungd me, just never noticed it