I See Naked People

Analysis of Form is sort of a survey class, and this week we did figure drawing from live models. It was pretty stressful, not because of the unclothed people, but because I really suck at it. It doesn't help that I sit next to 2 of the best artists in the class and have to keep staring at their awesome drawings. Hopefully things will improve when I take Figure Drawing in the fall.

The models did 5 minute, 10 minute, and 20 minute poses. All the models are really good, both in the poses they come up with, and in their ability to hold them for a specific length of time. One of the guys was kind of lazy and kept doing sitting poses, sleeping poses, etc. :)

HW #1 - Drapery

My first big homework assignment at the Academy of Art! We were supposed to spend 20-30 hours on this drapery, and I ended up spending a little over 20. I thought my hanging turned out very well, and it created a lot of nice folds and details that kept things interesting. The whole project went very smoothly, with no need to do any major changes. The blending turned out well, and I did this one entirely with Q-Tips. I still have the same bugaboo though of not having a big enough range of values across the drapery itself. I tried to go dark, but I was a little afraid to mix the compressed charcoal with the willow charcoal. I'll work on that in the next assignment. The background also is not very good, because I got a little sick the day before it was due, and only spent about 30 minutes on it. I feel happy about how the whole thing turned out though.

During break today we looked at the sketchbook of Ji, one of our classmates from China. His drapery didn't turn out super well, but his drawings are sensational. They are characters that he is designing just from his imagination. So I see that I still have a long ways to go, but if I can eventually create stuff like that I'll be happy.

Female Torso

Another step up in complexity. Instead of straight lines we are dealing with a lot of curves. This was another 2 session work, so about 7 hours total. Yes it was difficult staring at a nude female torso for 7 hours, but these are the sacrifices I make for art! Haha. :)

I think my drawing skills are pretty decent, and I'm happy with the way the overall shape turned out. And in spite of how it looks, I'm feeling a lot better about my blending after getting a few tips from the girl who sits next to me, Cheon-Whee, who is probably the best blender in the class. Still having a big problem with the value range across the form. It's difficult because the torso is totally white, and my mind keeps telling me to keep it lighter than the background. But this causes it to look washed out.

It's Curtains for You All

This was quite a step up in complexity from the simple objects we used before. But as Prof. Boxley pointed out, we use the same measuring skills we learned before. In this case we start with the points around the drapery (the top 2 pin locations, the furthest side points, and the bottoms of the longest folds), then connect them with lines. Then we choose a few internal points like the bottom of the big 'V' and connect those. It made things a lot easier to break it up like that. We spent quite a while on this 'drawing' phase - about 2 hours.

My blending is still a bit of a struggle, although it seemed to turn out okay in this piece. One thing though is that the range of values across the form is too small, so it looks sort of grayed out. Rendering took about 3-4 hours.

Measuring Relativity

Our next lesson was about measurement. With a pencil held out at armlength, we use measurements to make sure the objects are the correct size relative to each other. Then we use angles and additional measurements to get the relative positions of each object. I think my drawing turned out pretty well. When my prof came by he said it looked like a blueprint because I had so many guidelines and measuring points going on. Maybe it's those engineering degrees.

But another thing I realized is that my blending sucks. :( This is the first time I am using charcoal, and it's a bit of a struggle, as much with the charcoal paper as with the charcoal itself. I just seem to have a lot of trouble blending it. Blending with my finger doesn't seem to do anything at all, but using the chamois basically takes off all the charcoal! I really need to work on it.

The Music of the Spheres

It all begins with spheres... I think because spheres are the simplest 3D objects. I suppose there are cylinders, but every art student knows how incredibly difficult it is to draw straight lines! This assignment is basically about shading, and we learned about the 5 value system as a simplification of the range of values. Here the background is 5 (the darkest value), while the foreground is a 3. A 4 value is used for the shadow on the sphere, blending to a 2 on the light side. The lightest value, 1, is used for the highlight.

I'll just be taking one class, Analysis of Form. I was actually a bit nervous going to school for the first day because it's been quite awhile, and I didn't know what to expect from art school. But I was pleasantly surprised. My classmates seem really nice, although basically they are young enough to be my children. And my prof Jerry is really energetic and funny.

Off to Art School

I haven't been blogging alot, primarily because my Netflix queue has been full of episodes of the TV series '24' instead of movies. But also I have dropped down to part-time so that I could start taking classes at the Academy of Art in SF. I'll try to blog about my experiences there, and about the projects that we are working on.