Gesture drawing

Gesture drawings are quick sketches just to map out people's body position and make them proportional. For this project we had people pose on a table and drew them from different angles. This was the first time I had tried to draw people, or figures, from life and I think it helped me better understand body proportions.Some challenges I had were making the body proportional and understanding that gesture drawings are not just an outline of the body. Since I was going so quick I would make the legs too short and the torso too long. The arms were always a different length too. Then I learned that the legs are twice the length If the torso.

My favorite part about these gesture drawings was that they were so quick, but you could make them as detailed or sime as you wanted. I like how they all have the same basic shape, and outline, no matter who you are drawing.

Figure drawing

    For this project we were supposed to do a life sized drawing from life. Some challenges I had were proportion, spacing, and shading with charcoal. The face was difficult because when you're drawing from life things are constantly moving and it is hard to capture just one face that they make. The body was also difficult. With a photo you can section it off and make proportions easier, but you can't from life. Shading was difficult because the charcoal was so dark that I was afraid I could make the entire thing black.

    While working with charcoal I think I gained some skill with a familiar media. I had used it before but never for a project this big. By doing this I think I learned how to better control the charcoal pencil and add value, not just color in the shapes.

    My favorite part of the drawing is the folds In her pants, and my least favorite is her eyes, because they look dead and unproportional.

iPad gesture drawing

For this project we did gesture drawings on the iPads. It was difficult to draw on the iPads because you can't control the pressure of your pencil and the people we were drawing were moving.

Woriking with the iPads was a learning experience, but I was not happy with the finished project.

Tracing paper skull

For this peace I used tracing paper over a skull to draw a self portrait. Using the skull helped me keep the drawing proportional and place features correctly.

It was challenging to shade the drawing while it was over the skull. I had to outline the main features of the face, then shade off of the skull.

Doing this project this way helped me better understand the face and where features are placed on a face. 

Self portrait

Instead of doing an expressive self portrait I drew myself as a zombie. Some difficulties were making the area around the mouth look like ripped flesh and putting things in the right place. It was hard to place the nose and the teet because I was only drawing the bones.Although it was an assignment it is origional, and it wasn't right from a picture. 

My favorite part of this piece is the eyes. One is more realistic and almost happy and the other is dead.

Bottle Drawing

This was the first project that I used prismacolor on black paper. It was difficult putting the highlights in the right place and using the right colors. Because of this the bottle isn't as transparent as I wanted and the bottle wasn't the right shape. I didn't use reference pictures, I drew what I saw so it was difficult to make it proportional. The bottle was blue, but I added orange and purple to give it more depth and make it look better. 

Skeleton Drawing

For this drawing we drew a skeleton that was hanging on the middle of the room. I used graphite pencils. I feel I gained skill with a familiar material. While working on this I had some difficulty with proportion. The head was too big and the feet and lags were small. To fix this I held my pencil up to the skeleton and used it to compare measurements.

I used technology as a tool. I took a picture of the skeleton with my ohine and used the photo as a reference while I was shading and adding highlights.