figure drawing today

Today we spent 3 hours drawing in figure class. It was fantastic and also exhausting and intense. But I loved every minute of it! We started with 2 minute gestures drawings, then did 20 minute poses after that. Above are some of my valiant attempts.

I also worked a little in my art journal today, so will be posting something from that very soon.

figure drawing today

This is today's sketch from Life Drawing. It was a 20 minute pose, so it's pretty basic, but I like the line in it.

I have to tell you, this class is a challenge! I'm understanding the teacher, and it makes sense when she does things, but then when I try to apply them to my own drawing, it's like everything she said has run away to a non-functioning part of my brain. But if I can get it, I can see that my whole way of drawing will change for the better.

She talks about shapes and masses, breaking everything down to shapes first. The body can be looked at as a series of shapes. Combining the proper shapes makes a body that you can then refine from there. Today we focused on hands and arms. And once again, we began with shapes. Also the cool thing is how mathmatical the body is, how perfectly proportioned we are. It makes me more aware of the mystery and magnificence of nature, of the Universe.

Anyway, we only had time for a 20 minute pose today (hence the above drawing) but on Thursday we will draw all class time (about 3 hours). That will be exhausting but rich. In the meantime I plan to practice, practice, practice!

Today is my birthday, so to celebrate instead of baking a cake, I painted a cake! It's been a lovely day so far...dear friends took me out to lunch, and more friends meeting me for dinner tonight. Very enjoyable! 46 years old. Wow. It's very strange being on this side of 50. But life continues to get better with each passing year, so hopefully I've got a lot to look forward to, and a lot of adventures ahead.

the body

"The body is a house of many windows; there we sit, showing ourselves and crying on the passers-by to come and love us." Robert Louis Stevenson

some creating from yesterday

I had some time yesterday and felt like doing some jewelry, which I haven't done in quite awhile. I pieced together some vintage beads and medals using wire wrapping and jump rings. This is the result.

my first figure drawing class

Well, there will be no pictures today! We did a little drawing today, and mine was not so good. Sigh. Lots of practice is in order, let me tell you!

In saying that, I really enjoyed the class and learned a lot of helpful things to use as one is drawing a figure. We spent a lot of time looking at the skeleton and muscles of models and cadavers (the cadavers were on slides - still kind of weird), then our teacher did a demo. She broke everything down to shapes, or masses, and it was amazing! She drew these incredible figures just out of her head with no model. Which she says we will be able to do, because we will learn anatomy and how the figure is put together. I'm sure a lot of you out there are familiar with this stuff, but for me it was a revelation. And it looked so easy when she did it. HAH! Somehow my sorry little figure didn't quite look like hers and I admit I was a little lost.

So this weekend, time to practice! Tuesday we do hands and arms. Yikes!

my first days at school

Well, I've survived the first two days of school! So far it's been mostly going over what we'll be doing in class, getting supply lists, etc. Tomorrow (Wednesday) we start doing actual class work.

So, my classes are: Human Relations in Business, Small Group Communications, Two Dimensional Computer Design (we're learning Adobe Illustrator...I'm so excited! You can do so much with it!), and Life Drawing.

I think my favorite classes will be two-d computer design and life drawing (which is anatomy and figure drawing). Both the teachers are great! For the computer class it's a fellow about my age, cool in a geeky, artsy, computer guy way. The drawing teacher is young; I'd say maybe 32 at the outside, slim and oozes artiness. She has long straight hair dyed a vibrant red, was wearing a cool choker necklace, and has some beautiful tattoos. She just got back from doing on site sketching for an independent movie being shot in South Africa. What a way to spend your summer break!

Mostly I'm the oldest person in my classes (including my teachers!) so that's kinda funny. My classmates are all very young kids, 18-20 for the most part. But I did chat with a few people yesterday, so it's good. Hopefully I'll feel like the "cool auntie" to some of my classmates.

We begin drawing on Thursday, so I'll post some figure drawing stuff then...