Me

Writing of the words

My experience in life drawing has been great I truly enjoyed the atmosphere that the class was conduced in, I have never been so relaxed while drawing and that has helped me draw better.
I feel my line variation and creating forms with only line has progress a long way this semester. I achieved one of my goals to show a simple figure with my products and I have posted a couple rendering below showing a human form using my a product concept of mine. The clay muscles were interesting as well as fun to build. I felt I knew a good amount of the muscles for other classes but, when building muscles by hand one at a time I learned much more and looked at muscle as structures more than just tissues that made our bodies move.

FINAL POST

LONG DRAWINGS

My long drawings have continually increased in quality. The line weights and the proportions of the figure are slowly becoming stronger. At the beginning of the class I had a habit of making many marks to make a line of the figure, I have worked through this quite a bit and my drawings are becoming better and better. I have also seen improvement in my sketching in my ID class. Through gestures and trying to create the human figure with mostly lines and different line weights my design sketches have loosened up to create more interesting and visually appealing drawings. The drawing posted below is my most successful drawing at this point in time. The line variation creates a sense of dimension and the fore-shortening of the legs is very effective. Also the overlap of the lines on the knee and back ankle gives a lot of good information about the figure.

Muscles_ Torso to Leg

The strongest part of my manikin as of right now is the spinal erectors and the lower leg muscles. The quadraceps and the ham-strings would be the area I would want to revise. I the muscles are visible in the right two images. The positioning of the muscles are correct yet the muscle size seems to be to small the images I have seem do not seem to be full enough. The knee area is also an area that there are so many muscles crossing and bridgng that joit the connection points seem to get lost.

GOOD Gestures

Three of my best gestures so far in the class.


These three drawings were all in the 1 to 3 minute time range. I choose to post these because of the looseness and the line variations. The last two show very dynamic lines and convey the position and emotion of the figure. The middle image was as more relaxing pose an the right image was pose that could be in motion. Also compared to the previous gesture posting these, are created by using more exaggerated curves to show the leg positions and the rib cage angles. The main use of the cures are the thigh and calf areas of the figure. As I started to use the more curved lines to express how the figure was posing it became easier to look back and see that post on the paper while I was sorting though all of my gesture drawings.

Gestures

gesture #1                   gesture #2                            gesture#3

My gesture drawings have come a long way from the first few days of class. I didn't really know what a gesture drawing was so the first image was a rough outline of the figure. The second and third drawings, were after the demo on long axis drawings.  The later drawings show much more information, about the figure. As we learned more about the ribcage and the pelvis the position of the figure becomes more visible.

  

Blog, Blog, Blog

The most interesting blog post I have come across on another blog was a post about a website called dieselstation.com. The image he posted was very eye catching and I think that because I was interested in car design at one point in time. I found the concept cars on the site very inspiring. 

 To be honest I do not like much about blogging. I enjoy looking at other blogs but, I don't think I will do much of this type of thing after this class. I tend to forget about my blog until we have a post assignment. It is very frustrating when posting pictures and text. The layout is complicated as confusing.  

Some posts I may want to do, are more of my work from other classes. Also just some of my personal interests in art and other areas of life. I just have trouble finding time to post these things. I would rate my blog as an A for image quality, but probably a C+ for writing. I really have a rough time talking about my work. The commenting on group members posts I haven't done much because there hasn't been much other that muscle pics to comment on.      

Quads and Hami's

The leg muscles were the hardest to build yet. I did not realize that the muscle attachment points are in very similar. The hamstrings and the and the sartorious wrap around the knee joint in a way It is easier to see why the knee has the form it does. I think we should hve built these leg muscles before we built the glutes and tensor. 

Building this group of muscles was interesting, not because of the muscles themselves, but the images in the books for the glutius maximus, tensor, and the illiac head were confusing. The images did not seem to have much continuity. The tensor and the illiac head which have a common part, the book did not appear to show any common part. I do not know if I did it correctly or not.

Group Meeting 1

It was noted to avoid drawing in muscle tendons as it distracts from the behavior of the muscles. Tools were discussed, from techniques on carving to how to get into gaps with a smooth finish. The bulk of muscle was brought up and it was determined to feel your own muscles and build from there. The length of tendons as well as their connecting points were compared as well as the lower longissimus thoracis . Eric has had to remove muscle mass in order to place form underneath and build off of. Cal's mannequin has a fashionable mustache. For the actual building of the muscles, either rolling in the hand or flattening of the muscle was found to be easiest.

Muscles Phase #1

Building the abdominal muscles in clay were more difficult than others because if the areas of attachment and the span they cover on the body.
Picture one shows the frontal view. The muscles visible are the obliquus externus abdomimis, and the rectus abdominis.
The abdominal muscles attach to the rib cage and stretch down to the pelvis. The function is to flex the lumbar vertebrae, and to compress the rib cage and abdomen.

Picture 2 is the back 3/4 view. This image shows the spinal erectors which consists of 9 different muscles that connect to various places along the spine and posterior rib cage. The function of this group of muscles it to flex the neck or cervical vertebrae and to flex the thoracic vertebrae.This image also shows the back side of the obliques and the jagged connection to each of the ribs it is attached. Below is the back and front 3/4 views.

The back view shows the network of muscles that make up the spinal erectors. These muscles were difficult to construct because they spiral around each other, and the connecting points are mostly in a the same general area.

I learned that muscles are a even more complex system than I already thought. Plus muscles provide a large amount of structure and shape to the body. I dealt with my frustration with learn this new process by taking my time and molding the muscles in my hand an checking the muscles on the skeleton a few times before attaching them. I did not find anything very frustrating about the process. I really enjoy working with clay and building things. Problems I solved were, figuring the clay molds much better when it is warmed up. I would nead the clay for a minute or two then shape it. I also found that using a tool to connect the clay to the skeleton allows you to create tighter spaces between the muscles.

The next class I think I will just try to build the muscles a little faster and try to improve the shape the muscles by building them up out of multiple pieces.

The only real advice I would give is to look carefully at your book and take your time when building in clay. Also wash you hand once in a while I feel i work better with clay when my hands are clean.

The new knowledge that I have got from building in clay I think that I will use it by visualizing the figure better, just as learning the rib cage and pelvis help to see proportion in the figure.

Pelvis Tracings

Tracings p.2

Raphael  

Red Chalk

264 x 197 mm

All original images form the book The Draftsman Raphael. 

These drawing were great to work with, I found that the detail and motions depicted in them almost as good as looking at a real figure. The dimensions of the drawings were very much along the same guidelines taught in class. Lightly tracing around or within the torso created a shape very close to the egg shape for the ribcage. The exercise was good to see the ribcage in or for different positions.  P.S. sorry about the lay out, I am still learning to use the blog. 

Tracings p.1

Left: Caleb Summers

         9-21-2008

         colored pencil on                    tracing paper

         11 1/2 x 8 in

Right: Raphael

            pen and ink

            269 x 197 mm

Left: Caleb Summers

         9-21-2008

         Colored pencil on                tracing paper 

         11 1/2'' x 8''

Right: Rapheal 

            Red Chalk

            379 x 281 mm

I thought this was one of by better drawing so far. 

I posted it just to post it.

Three Long Drawings

I have learned what a gesture drawing is to start. I thought before that a loose drawing of the figure was a gesture drawing. So far in class I have learned that not much more than a stick figure can express, or contain more information than a representation of what our eyes see.
For example the first 30 minute drawing has some good  quailties, but you do not see the qualities that the gesture drawing contains. The next drawing is much easier to find the correct proportion by using the long axis lines. I did not know to look for these lines in a figure until it was explained in class, but as soon as it was I understood why. It may not look like like much more than a stick figure, but it is the foundation of drawing the figure. 

                                 

Drawing with the long axis lines and a basic ribcage and pelvis, shows where and at what angle the limbs are at. When adding line variation ads a good amount of depth to my drawing compared to the first long drawing.

The figure is such a

 familiar image for our eyes to see, any flaw in the drawing pops out of the drawing quite a lot. The latest drawing I did after learning about the spinal cures, I feel looks odd.

The curves of the spine are rather difficult to get correct for me right now.  The drawing with the spinal curves seems distorted to me.  I began to add the outline of the figures lower limbs. It was not done well and it creates an odd dynamic to the drawing.  The human figure is a very complicated form to draw. Learning the figure step by step through gesture drawings has shown me that even though you can show it with lines is still difficult to get right. 

sign

My graphic design project is one of the ones that show my humor. I made this warning sign for the squirrels on campus. I felt the need to inform them of the dangers of the junk food discarded on campus. Squirrels have the right to be healthy also. 

my Lamp

The Lamp is made out of completely recyclable materials. It contains no glues or other adhesives, which make recycling difficult or impossible. This project became drawn out and I decided to design a lamp I want for myself. So,  this is what I ended up with.