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Intermediate Drawing - Class #2
Mar. 31st, 2004 04:05 amWe started out with black construction paper and a piece of colored chalk, standing at easels arranged in a semicircle around a skeleton. After a few tries, we managed to figure out our instructions. First, pick a part of the skeleton and draw it. Then, take your paper, but not your chalk, and move one easel to the right. With the new color of chalk, and the new viewpoint, draw over your first drawing, starting with a point that the two views have in common. Repeat. The end result is 6 or so views of the same part from different angles, all in different colors, drawn on top of one another. Though one of the more complicated bits to draw, I chose the skull for 2 reasons: 1) Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and 2) It was easily visible over the tops of the easels, so I didn't need to look around them in order to do my drawings. I still misunderstood one aspect of this, and that was that we were only to do outlines, and not do any shading. Oops. She kept talking about varying amounts of pressure on the chalk to show light and dark, so I assumed that meant we were shading. So, mine doesn't quite look right.
Next, we moved back to flat surfaces and our sketchbooks, and worked on proportions in the human figure. First we drew a standing figure based on the average proportions for figures (such as a human male being about 7.5 - 8 heads tall), and then moved on to trying to copy some more active poses from some sheets the instructor handed out.
I finished the first bit pretty quickly, since I have some experience trying to work under that system. I moved on to active poses, and the instructor soon came by and said that I was obviously a little more advanced, and would I like to try some even more dynamic things from the "Comics the Marvel Way" book that she had. This caught me a bit off guard. I mean, obviously I have experience with figure drawing, but I didn't think that the rough sketches we were doing really placed me so obviously beyond what other people in the class were doing. A couple of people looked over when she said this, and they also agreed that I was further along in this area than they are. That was nice to hear and all, but it sort of meant that this class was little more than practice, with not much in the way of new stuff for me. That's okay, though. It reassures me that I didn't learn it incorrectly or something.
We also talked about Escher a bit, and I think she's going to have us try to draw self portraits of ourselves as seen in a concave or convex mirror. I volunteered to Xerox a copy of his "Self Portrait with Sphere," or whatever it's called, and she seemed pleased that I might have a book with it in it. When I mentioned that I had a book that claims to be his complete graphic works she seemed rather impressed. I guess I'm just full of surprises. = )
Next, we moved back to flat surfaces and our sketchbooks, and worked on proportions in the human figure. First we drew a standing figure based on the average proportions for figures (such as a human male being about 7.5 - 8 heads tall), and then moved on to trying to copy some more active poses from some sheets the instructor handed out.
I finished the first bit pretty quickly, since I have some experience trying to work under that system. I moved on to active poses, and the instructor soon came by and said that I was obviously a little more advanced, and would I like to try some even more dynamic things from the "Comics the Marvel Way" book that she had. This caught me a bit off guard. I mean, obviously I have experience with figure drawing, but I didn't think that the rough sketches we were doing really placed me so obviously beyond what other people in the class were doing. A couple of people looked over when she said this, and they also agreed that I was further along in this area than they are. That was nice to hear and all, but it sort of meant that this class was little more than practice, with not much in the way of new stuff for me. That's okay, though. It reassures me that I didn't learn it incorrectly or something.
We also talked about Escher a bit, and I think she's going to have us try to draw self portraits of ourselves as seen in a concave or convex mirror. I volunteered to Xerox a copy of his "Self Portrait with Sphere," or whatever it's called, and she seemed pleased that I might have a book with it in it. When I mentioned that I had a book that claims to be his complete graphic works she seemed rather impressed. I guess I'm just full of surprises. = )
