Drawing Practice CW2

Each week for the past couple of months, I have been involved in the Drawing Practice course which taught me how to draw in Life class. I have had previous experience with the Life drawing class in college, however it wasn't as well thought out as it is in University.

30 Second poses

1, 2, 5 Minute poses

Gesture poses

Drawn Environment in Pastel and a Perspective that relates to the Environment.

Paintings 

Coloured Paper Paintings

Charcoal & Chalk

Anatomy and Bone structure

Foreshortening 

Capturing Movement

Adding Tone and Shading

Felt tip and Pencil

Pen

Conclusion 

When I first started Life class in University, I had a rough idea on what I might be drawing. However, I was shown various new ways and techniques to draw with my life drawing pieces and I believe that I improved each week on my drawing skills, especially with my still life, anatomically correct drawings, and I have also gained more confidence to use more medias rather than pencil.

I really enjoyed the 30 second, 1, 2, and 5 minute drawings so much, it really challenged me to create the image on the paper quickly because I take a while to add the whole drawing onto the paper sometimes, and I believe that challenging me to create the drawing in such a short time frame was a great practice for me to speed up my process sometimes.

One process that was really infuriating, was the capturing movement drawings. Because I wasn't able to process a full sketch, I had to rush the drawings every time and it just made my drawings look really rushed and out of place. One upside though is that the cluttered drawings actually seem to work well with the piece like it was similarly to an animation with onion skinning on. I also was confused on foreshortening, I just couldn't wrap my head around how the image was supposed to look and which body part was supposed to be bigger than the other. It was very interesting  to have a go at it though, and I was very pleased with the foot one because it reminds me of some of Jenny Saville's  paintings.

One of the pieces which depicts the model in a crown with a robe sat on a throne, was something that I came up with in my head. The way the model was sat on the chair on top of the table made me think of a king on a throne so I decided to create that look. The drawing really reminds me of an old medieval painting of a king looking towards the painter. 

Whilst at college, the life drawing class that I attended had a skeleton that we would mainly draw every week when the life model wasn't in, so when we had to draw the life model in a skeleton form, I thought that it would be an interesting look, and I really enjoyed the session doing it. I'm not very good at drawing bones but whilst looking at the skeleton and looking at the model it really helped a lot to create the design and it is definitely one of my favourites to create.

At the start of the classes, I really didn't like to create paintings, I thought that I couldn't make a good piece which insisted of paint. But as I gradually went on with the classes, I felt as if my paintings were improving each week and that I were getting more and more interested with creating new pieces with different ideas. I tried normal skin tone colours at first to test out how I would be at painting, then I wanted to try something new trying to use similar colours in a pop art design on the model I was drawing. I thought that by using vibrant colours on the design that it would stand out, which it did but it looked very peculiar as I was trying something I have never done before. As the months went on, I decided to exaggerate one of my pieces a little bit by making the colours look strong, such as using the blush on the model's cheeks and chest and making them stand out a lot. 

Unfortunately, I created a plasticine model but was unable to acquire photographic evidence consisting of a front, back and side view. However, I did have fun when creating the model but it was very challenging trying to determine the correct shape for the legs or the arms.  

Overall, I started off the drawing practice course without any proper skill or knowledge of using various medias and techniques however I do believe that my creativity skills have improved greatly. I feel like I am able to create a piece with various techniques and have the confidence to use a wide range of different medias without being scared to use them. I also feel that I can enjoy creating paintings from now without having any frustration. I would like to improve on adding tone to a piece of work, I feel like I lack the skill to add it into my designs whether they are pencil, charcoal or even paint there seems to be less volume with the work that I produce.