Week Seven Part Two

I guess our post for this week has a more specific topic so I’ll just post twice this week. We were asked to reflect on the semester so far. I feel like the semester is flowing along smoothly. After preparing my portfolio on flickr I noticed that I have improved quite a bit since the beginning. I feel like I’m getting a lot out of this class which is nice. Drawing people was always a hard task for me and it still is, but I’m much more confident in my abilities. I never would have imagined that doing 10 second gesture drawings would be such a good warm up and that it really does help my drawings. I took this class to learn how to not draw stick figures so it’s funny that we spend the first few minutes of each class drawing stick figures. I especially have enjoyed learning how contours are the key to getting your drawings to look three dimensional. We’ve all drawn something that just doesn’t look right so when I find I’m in that situation I like to draw a few contours to help me see the form of an object. I’ve also been enjoying practicing manipulating my drawings so that even if I see something a certain way, it shouldn’t always be drawn that way. I had always been told the opposite so it’s interesting to find the tricks that make the eye see something to be more realistic.

For the rest of the semester I hope we get more practice doing long drawings. It’s nice to be able to take our time to draw something and really observe it. I’ve learned so much through long drawings and I feel like each one gets better. I’m also looking forward to more critiques so I know exactly what I can work on.