Week 9

There was only one day of class this week due to mid-program reviews, so there was less production this week. The “part two” of our cross contour shell drawings were due this week. I personally feel like I took a step backward in my drawing. I tried so hard to incorporate the comments and suggestions I was given from my first drawing that I paid more attention to things like line weight and diagonal axis than I did to the actual form of the shell. You would think that my line weight and diagonal axis would be an improvement from the first since I spent so much time concentrating on those elements, however that is not the case. The whole composition was a disastrous regression. As disappointed as I am about that fact, it seems to be the general consensus amongst many of my classmates as well. As discussed in my group for critique, we hope to take the best of the first and what we attempted to do in the second and create a successful third piece.

We will be applying ink to our third and fourth drawings, so I am looking forward to that. I have never worked much with ink and my few attempts with watercolor were years ago. This will be an interesting experience for me. I have always enjoyed the surrealism that can be achieved through successful ink washes and I hope to achieve some of that in my attempts. We will be practicing with ink next week in class, which I am excited about. I am interested in how the ink and brush might relate to painting, which is my concentration. I would like to incorporate some of my painterly style into my ink work, but don’t know how the medium will react to my hand. We will just have to wait and see!

We also spent a significant time in class working with the feet. This is an intimidating matter for me, as the hands and feet have always been the most difficult for me. There is little room for error due to their very specific shape and bony nature. I think they will take practice to really get down, but the lecture about bone structure was very helpful. The differences in my drawings from before the lectures and after the lectures are always drastic. It seems I need to understand the internal nature of something before I can successfully capture the external nature.