first still life

This was the first fully shaded drawing I had to do.  The instructions were to pick four objects of various shapes and sizes and draw them in pencil.  I took a hardcover book, a shell from the MS Gulf Coast, a plastic Tupperware bowl and a Hawaiian nose flute.  The nose flute came out a little skinny for what it is in reality but other than that I think this came out really well.  It took me a long time to do this drawing, overall I spent about six hours on this.  I did start over on this about four or five times and got frustrated and threw them away.  The initial way to lay out the shapes for a drawing calls for lightly sketching in where you think the objects are supposed to be.  Well it turns out I am horrible at this particular step.  I finally figured out that if I draw one object in proportion then I can add the other objects in relation to it.  Although I ran the problem of drawing the initial object either to small or to large and the other objects didn't all fit properly on the page.  It took a lot of trial and error but I like the end result and I had a lot of fun getting there.

expressive drawing with charcoal

My next assignment for my drawing class was to draw a branch using charcoal.  I have never actually used charcoal before this but I found that using it expressively was an interesting experiment.  Since this was my first time using charcoal and my first time doing an expressive drawing I felt no stress over doing it the "right" way or of how it came out.  I really enjoyed the amount of freedom that comes with a stress less approach to drawing.  I did find charcoal to be extremely messy and difficult to use to draw fine lines accurately (I'm sure that is do to inexperience, I have seen some amazing charcoal work).  The fact that I found it difficult to draw accurately with it is what led to me doing much better in making an expressive drawing.  While I found this to be a fun experiment I was glad that we were using pencil to do the majority of the work in class.





drawing class

The next class I took was a drawing class that didn't use the computer just pencil and paper.  The first two assignments we had were blind and semi blind drawings.  That is where you look at the object you are drawing without looking at the paper and with only looking a minimal amount.  I did the four drawings of my hand totally blind and the one holding my son's teething ring semi blind.  I found that doing the drawings in this way was really freeing because we were told not to care about the final outcome.  Drawing something where the final result doesn't matter is a great feeling and made the entire experience very fun to do.  I have worked off and on for a few years at doing pencil drawings but have never done blind drawing or still life, which we do for the rest of the class, and I was really looking forward to this class.  With the first two drawings being so much fun I looked forward to the assignments every week.



Final project

So for my final project I had to find a way to take the previous design and make it into something more.  When I started on the background I had the idea of a kind of road runner style scene with the "trees" as the main attractions.  I guess I succeeded in making the picture more than it was originally but I can't say that I'm completely happy with the result.  I still believe the problem is in the original concept and had I done a better job with that I would have had a better end result.  I know that I thought about each step as an end unto itself and that's what led to not considering how I would ultimately use the project.  In this situation it was difficult because I wasn't checking the future assignments as I went, hopefully in a professional setting I will know more about the end goal at the beginning. 

color study for final

After coming up with my final design I had to create 4 different color schemes to portray it.  It was at this point that I really started to run into the limitations of my design.  It wasn't just that the design itself was limiting but I also the method that I went about creating the initial design also left me stuck with trying to color it.  In the end I had to recreate the design in order to add the color.  I took my time and recreated it and marked it as a lesson learned.  Hopefully a lesson I won't soon forget.  At every step of this process I was kicking myself for not having thought harder about what the final project was going to be.  Amazingly enough, even as I was doing this and kicking myself I still forgot that I wasn't creating the final design ( we'll get to that next week).  I still managed to complete the assignment and while it isn't at all what I was hoping it would be it is something and, believe it or not, sometimes the knowledge that you accomplished something is still enough to give you the confidence to keep going.



final project ideas

For this week I had to start working on my final project.  The first thing I had to do was write a statement describing what I was going to do.  It took me forever to come up with something,  I learned that I work a lot better when I have some kind of guidelines.  If given a blank slate and told create anything I have trouble.  I finally settled on transformation, the idea was that I would take smaller shapes and have them merge into something greater than themselves.  Once I gave myself some guidelines it enabled me to start working on something but I still don't think this is my best work.  I tried a few variations on this theme and ultimately let the due date dictate what got turned in.  I knew at this point that this would be the first piece that would be colored but I didn't consider color at all while doing the original design, that was definitely a mistake.  I did manage to create something and I don't hate it but I know I'm not ready to just do my own thing yet.

depth and volume

This week I had to create a design with the spatial illusions of both depth and volume.  This design came about in a very easy manner.  I didn't even try any other designs this week.  It took me a little bit of time to get the details correct but after having completed my perspective class it wasn't very difficult to create depth on a flat page.  This is one of those designs that really shows how nice it is to work with adobe illustrator, that program is so versatile that you can save loads of time if you know how to use it.  Other than the pleasure of figuring out the designs to fit the criteria I think that the use of illustrator to do everything was very useful.  As much as I like this design it was rather simple and took almost no time to create.  It's amazing how the simplest things can sometimes have the most appeal.