Domo Arigato, Mr Roboto

The third class I'm taking this semester is called Figure Modeling, colloquially known as "Naked People Sculpture". This project does not look like naked people. It doesn't even look like people. It's our "geometrical figure", and it's simplified forms allow us to study the shapes and proportions of various muscles in the body. To be honest, I'm not really into sculpture, but I can see how this class helps us with our figure drawing. I did get a pretty good grade on this figure though, and I'm a pretty fast sculptor for some reason. I guess all those years of playing with Play-Doh finally paid off!

We spent 3 weeks on this figure, so about 15 hours in all. Then immediately we had to tear it up and throw it back into the clay bucket, which was emotionally very traumatic!

Value Scale

I have an incredibly important class called Color & Design. It covers color theory, design concepts, and also presentation. It probably has the most workload of any class in the major, and is also really expensive. :) But I am really looking forward to it because the concepts are so crucial.

Our first assignment was to create a 9-step value scale. We first painted 25 shades of gray using gouache, then selected 7 shades between black and white such that each step is equally spaced! They are also very particular about the painting quality, and the mounting of the 'swatches' onto the cardstock. It's a bit dangerous because I can be very much of a perfectionist if provoked, and it seems like that is what they are asking. Maybe this is why so many artists are kind of crazy.

Figure Drawing 101

I've started my Naked People, errrr... Figure Drawing class. Our first assignment was to do a 40 minute drawing to use as a starting point to map out our progress. I think this was also a way to make us feel inadequate, at least for me because I'm really lousy at figure drawing. I've shown my drawing on the left.

Then we did a really awesome exercise called "massing". Using the side of the charcoal, we coarsely draw in the figure silhouette. It's a way for us to get a good "gesture" for the pose, and to loosen up and draw more confidently rather than concentrating on small details. This was incredibly fun - I could probably do massing all day.