Week 11 Life Drawing
I was absent for classes this week due to illness, so I'll muse a bit on my progress, and where I'm at in the course.
I think that I've come a long way since the struggles of Week 1 and 2, but I still have a long way to go. Back then, I would basically try to outline the model on paper, and that was basically the first thing that Life Drawing Books say not to do. I struggled to draw what I saw, and I think my defense against that was to avoid finishing my drawings. I would try and look at the model for longer than usual, and during the 30 second or 1 minute drawings, I would usually just end up with a line of action and basic shapes before moving on to the next action. I think that this was a mistake, since it meant I wouldn't get to the important part of life drawing, that being force and balance. In my efforts to try and understand perspective and proportions, I'd lose the point of the exercise, to draw life. As a result, I ended up with dead drawings.
Later on, until maybe week 5, I I had begun to lose this fear of failure, and I focused more on drawing the model. I stopped thinking as much about getting the shapes or the proportions right, and I focused more on getting the pose, and the emotion behind it. I started thinking about tweaking and changing how I drew things, and that's where I thik I really started to understand what Life Drawing is about, and why we do it. It keep your drawings free, fluid, and emotional. The time limits and difficult poses all help you make informed decisions about what the artist is trying to say. I remember one of the books hammering in the idea of "Every line having an opinion", and I think that's the best way to describe it.
Later on, I got the hang of understanding various shapes in life drawing. I think I'm best at drawing shoulders and upper back muscles, because I think I've gotten better at getting the force and the shape of the Deltoid, trapezius, and 'Infraspinatus' muscles. (I looked them up)
Otherwise, I've gotten better at having a system of lines and shapes to say what I want. I've started using C lines and S lines to emphasize different parts of the body, and I've been drawing straight lines less. I think where I need to improve, is that I get too specific at times, and tighten up my drawing, so I should loosen up a bit and try and exaggerate more.
Overall, I'm surprised by some of my drawings in how they seem to hold together and make a statement. A lot of my drawings are still weak, and lose form, force and everything else, and I think part of that is due to a loss of focus, and the rest to inexperience. I still have a lot of trouble with chairs, and relating spheres and cubes to one another. the shapes still look like they're floating on two different planes, which I think means I need to understand the sphere better.
Hopefully I can transfer what I've learned here into my other work in the course.
Comments
Post a Comment