Final Portfolio

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Boy have I learned a lot about the human body in the last 5 months!  Learning the different parts of the body week by week really intrigued me and I enjoyed listening to the lectures.  It is fascinating how much there is to know; I probably just scratched the surface.  The book wasn’t my favorite to follow along with the muscles, but once I got a real look at them, it was so cool to actually see them on the live model.  I really do now see the curves and muscles in people’s bodies in every day life.  We only drew from the life size skeletons a few times, but for the hand and the skull, it really helped me to visualize what was underneath our skin. 

I think one of the main things to remember when drawing the body is the angle of the sternum.  This, along with how the rig cage is positioned, is really the base of the whole body.  In the beginning of the semester I used a charcoal stick, and after midterm I switched over to a charcoal pencil.  It was much easier to control the lines and smudging.  For gesture drawings, I always wanted to draw the edges of the body rather than overall lines.  Sometimes I got frustrated when I had to go really fast and it ended up not looking like anything, but gesture drawings really are essential to warming up for a longer pose to get your brain working at looking at overall flow.  A struggle for me was knowing that my drawings weren’t going to look perfect, but realizing that I’m still learning.  There are so many aspects of all the parts of the body to get to come together to make the whole.  Many places of the human body are hard because our eye assumes one thing, but in reality having to overcome those familiar parts.  The face was probably the hardest part for me, and the hands. There are so many planes that are necessary to get right in order for it to look realistic. 

This class has really forced me to look at contour lines and subtle plane changes.  Showing the curves in the body embeds muscles and bones and also gives dimension.  It was always a good feeling when, especially the final weeks of class, I finished a drawing and got it to look mostly right.  It is cool to put all the pieces together and make it look like an actual whole body.  I think this class will bring more life into any of my art in the future.  Knowing that planes really do make an image look more 3D, I will even bring that into my GD work.  This class has taught me so much about the make up of the human body and also to observe what I see.

The Face!

We dissected the face this week.  This was probably my least favorite part of the body so far.  It was just constant revisions the whole time for me.  I am not too excited for our final self portrait because I think it will be very hard to make it look like yourself.

Eyes: for the eyeball think of a globe, with the latitude and longitude feeling of roundness. The cornea, or colored part, is a partial sphere itself and is raised up.  Where ever the cornea is - is where the eye is looking.  The eyelid wraps around the ball shape.  The top lid has 3 planes, the bottom has 2.  Where the brow hits its high point and at the side of the cornea is where the plane change happens.  The upper lid is longer and always going to overlap the lower lid at the lateral corner.  When drawing lashes, think of it as a 3 dimensional for or shadow-like; most dominant on the outside upper lid.  Also don't forget the "U", which differs from person to person.

Nose:  The nose starts with bone and ends with cartilage, there will be an axis change where this happens.  Also remember the nostrils are always on the bottom plane.  The philtrum connects the nose to the mouth, this is also called the "love filter."

Mouth:  The upper lip of the mouth is longer and overlaps the lower.  If you draw a line straight down from the center of the eye this is where the end of the lips should be.  Don't let the lips end at a point!  Exaggerate the thicks and thins.

Ear: The ear has a lot of little parts that make it up.  Overall, the ear is angled back and from the eyebrow going back is the top and the bottom of the nose going over.  Really emphasize angle changes.

Neck:  The neck easily described is a cylinder on a diagonal.

Hair:  Do not draw individual strands of hair, but rather as a form. with planes!

These are all the tips I got in class, but they are easier said than done!  There is so much to consider when it comes to the face and its hard for me to bring it all together to actually look realistic.  I chose one drawing from class to post, but i honestly wasn't a fan of any of them.  Practice practice practice!

Week 12

The Skull

The skull has a ton of information to retain because it is the main focus of the human body.  The face is the first thing you look at, but it is actually only 1/3 of the head.  The cranium or "shell" makes up the other 2/3s of the area.  There is an imaginary separating line from the earhole to the bridge of the nose that divides it in two.  The eyes are what you notice first psychologically, but when drawing try to remember to not short the 2//3s section because that is where the brain goes!

The skull itself has four major sections.  The Frontal section makes up the front third of the skull (shocker there). The frontal eminence makes up the forehead region.  The middle section is the Parietal section.  The high point occurs in this section.  (suture line) The parietal eminence marks the wide points.  The back section is made up of the occipital bone.  There is a little external occipital protruberance bone that is found in the middle back.  The mastoid process marks the side to back plane change.  The side section, called the Temporal, contains the ear hole.

Some land marks that can be helpful: eyes are half way from top to bottom.  Ear is half way from front to back.  The brow is larger in males than females.  The brows and cheeks come out farther to protect the eye. The jaw is super narrow in realtion to the cheeks.  There is a front to back plane change on the side of the face *try to think of pres tech to recognize the planes in space and the different planes on the face in the reflected light.

We drew from the skulls all week from all the angles.  For the back view I focused on the contour lines because there wasn't much detail, but there was subtle variation.  I tried marking the main areas off and then continuing lines around the surface.  Right in the middle was throwing me off and then Amy explained to me that it was hard to differentiate because it was right at eye level.  For the bottom, frontal view, i tried to emphasize the actual shape of the face and the natural holes/indentations.  Another fun fact about my skeleton was that he was missing his bottom jaw, poor guy!

Week 11

The Hand!

The hand is a very intricate part of the body because there are so many bones.  I think the hand is a difficult area to draw because it is so familiar to the eye you can tell if it looks off.  There are so many different planes and joints that there is a lot of places where you can go wrong.

In class we broke it up to draw the skeleton hand for the half the time and the human hand for the other half.  I chose to start with the skeleton hand in hopes it would get me a better feel for the inside before I drew the outside.  It was interesting to see how irregular the phalange bones are and how narrow the end bone gets.

The proper way to attempt to draw a hand is to start with the body of the hand (the curve), then find the planes, the long axis line of each finger, then the thumb, and finally add detail.  To avoid sausage fingers exaggerate the wide, narrow, wide.  The bones in the hand largely resemble the bones in the foot.  The carpal bones make up the palm and have an arch to them.  The metacarpals, again, are box, rod, and ball.  Another major problem that most people have is not connecting the thumb to the wrist because it is visually deceiving to start off the palm.  I found it interesting the curve that can be made through the same joints of all the fingers to visually make a semi-circle kind of a form.

I drew two different real life hand poses and I think the more irregular posed hand turned out more successful because I actually had to concentrate on what I saw and how the fingers were interacting..  In the other pose, where it was just a plain hand, I think our brain just draws what we think we see rather than what is really there and that is something I need to strive to get accurate.  Other things I worked on were correcting the thumb and not making it so bally at the end and also curving fingernails around the finger.

Week 10

Moving down to the lower arm this week.  The arms are so complex because of all the small muscles that intertwine and because of the different positions the arms can be in.  Also the different sizes of the bones that are close to one another and the twisting motion that sometimes occurs even when it is still; for example with the radius and the ulna.  The thick and thin ends alternate and complete the shape of the arm in almost a puzzle-like manner.  In a way the arms parallel the legs, but are more delicate.  I feel like the arms are almost the trickiest part of the body to master because of its large range of mobility and most inconsistent positioning/view points from pose to pose.

Even in the standard positions arms are tricky.  The arm is expected to be straight down from the shoulders, but actually angle out from the body.  There are also different positions the arms can rest.  Supine position means palms up.  Prone, palms down.  This is where the ulna and radius start to dance with each other.  The ulna extends from the pinky to the elbow and is larger at the top, owning the elbow.  The radius extends from the elbow to the thumb and is larger on the bottom, owning the wrist.

As for the maniken, the little muscles in the arm are easier to sculpt, but a little harder to uniform together by making them flow as one overall, large object.  The maniken looks almost complete and it is crazy to think that we are almost done.  I am really looking forward to a review of everything we learned just as a refresher to piece everything together.  I think that will really help with my final drawings.  I am also excited to learn how to properly draw the head.

I wasn’t a fan my drawings this week. I have concluded I like longer poses in an upright position rather than lying down.

Week 9

Tuesday: I am starting to get a hang of the manikens and I think the muscles are getting easier and easier for me to visualize. One that we added that i think is very easy to see are the Deltoids. Some in the back i feel are harder to pick out in real life, but the shoulder has alot of curves and dimension going on around the shoulder bone.

Thursday: Lot of drawing in this week! 6 full hours! Still mainly working on the shoulder girdle. I noticed a significant amount of difference in the muscles from female to male models, definitely easier to see on a male.  I enjoy drawing the shoulder, I think I am losing sight of the egg though and I find myself just starting to draw the shoulders and then realizing i should add the egg in, such as in my second gesture drawing shown, i went right for the shoulder blades and i had to add the egg in toward the end and it looks too low in proportion to the body.  In my first gesture drawing below, even though it is only a 30 second drawing, I really like how you can see all the movement through the spine and the hips and the legs.  The bottom two are longer drawings.  I tried to focus mainly on contour lines in the last one because the armpit had so much depth going on.  I feel like the drawing looks kind of weird because i was smack dab on the side of him.

We learned a little bit about the arm today.  The elbow is located between the rib cage and the hips.  I think the arms have a lot more dimension than what we realize because people automatically think of them as two super long straight parts of the body, but theres actually a lot going on. 

Week 8

Shoulder Blade & Collar Bone-

The scapula and clavicle make up the shoulder girdle.  The two key points to keep in mind for drawing this section are the 1)medial border of the scapula, which runs along the angle of the ribs, almost parallel to the backbone in resting position, but also moves in regards to the arm. 2)spine of the scapula- spiral along the top of the blade.  The shoulder blade is actually larger than we assume it to be, it is half the length of the ribs, from the 2nd rib to the 7th rib.  The summit of the shoulder is the high point where the clavicle and scapula meet, also known as the acromion process.

We did some short 30 second drawings in class and then did a one hour pose.  I feel like the shorter ones helped us quick grasp the angle of the medial border of the scapula in relationship to where the arm was placed.  Seeing different poses over and over gave us an overall understanding of the movement.  Sometimes, such as in the longer pose it is very subtle and more difficult to see where the shoulder bone is located.  Since it was a somewhat normal position we knew where they were by referencing a skeleton.  I learned that we have to keep in mind the egg shape when drawing the shoulder blade and it almost cups around it.  It also helped to see the effect the spinal erectors have on the positioning of the shoulder blade.  Another thing I initially did wrong in some of my shorter drawings was draw the clavicle in reverse.  It is tricky to see the curve, even in simpler poses. I am excited to put these muscles on my maniken to even further understand this section of the body, hope it doesn't need too much clay though because I definitely feel like I am getting to the end of my pile!

Week 7

Feet-

No model tuesday resulted in a maniken day.  We added the feet muscles in preparation for Thursdays class which was all drawing.  The feet muscles are all pretty round and long and skinny, kind of noodley.  The feet are a very intricate part of our body.  There is the ankle system (Talus), the heel system (Calcaneus), the navicular bone, the tarsal bones, metatarsals, phalanges, etc.  The toes and fingers are similar structure, the only difference is size because the feet have to hold weight.  The second toe runs up to make the arch.  The tips I learned to draw the feet to make them look realistic is to exaggerate the narrows and wides in the foot.  Also exaggerate the toe planes - trying to avoid sausage toes!  Another interesting fact I learned was that the knee and the ankle on the same leg are going to have opposite diagonals, which makes sense because our body always balances itself.  We did some 5 and 10 minute drawings of the foot and then we moved to an hour long.  I think I made a lot of progress in working my way up to the hour pose.  The first few really smoothed out a lot of my glitches because I felt very comfortable as I went into the last pose.  I think showing planes is really the most convincing part to these feet drawings.  It is important to stay focused on all the contour lines because there is so much going on.  It is so interesting to see how all the bones are placed under there and how they all fit together and then to convey it on paper.  A tip from my midterm portfolio was to use a more compressed charcoal for a more controlled drawing and less smudging, I worked with a charcoal pencil and i really liked the difference.  Now for a week of spring break. Enjoy!

Midterm Portfolio

Midterm Photos

Looking back at our first day of drawing, I think I captured the whole overall movement of the figure better because I wasn’t focused on looking at just the rib cage in particular, but the figure as a whole such as in Drawing1.  Focusing on the spinal cord, rib cage and pelvis definitely helped out a lot though, I think it is confining me more and making my drawings into more realistic figures.  These three things we have primarily focused on thus far in the semester.  I need to learn how to quicken myself in shorter gesture drawings.  I’d have to say about two minute gestures are perfect time to go quick, but yet get most of the information you want and also having a little bit of time to look.  I do, however, enjoy the long poses the best because you have ample time to really observe and pick out muscles and make corrections.

Mannequins can get me frustrated easily.  Not only is the book tough to accurately represent the muscle, but I have a hard time forming the clay and making it smooth.  I think it is due to my cold fingers not being able to activate the clay.  I’ve learned that it is better to go bigger because it is easier to take off clay than add it.  On the positive side, I really do enjoy the lectures we have in class regarding the anatomy of the human figure and how the muscles interact.  It is also cool to add on muscles and then visually see them on the model when we draw.  Sometimes, since there are so many muscles I get them confused or forget the names, but I think time and practice will make me a pro.

One thing I need to work on is finding the movement in the spinal cord and rib cage because I just assume it is all straight and start off with a normal egg.  I need to push myself to look at the overall movement first and then lay it in.  I also feel like I get lost in the pelvic bone at times.  I have a tendency to make the triangle in the back of the pelvis parallel along the top of the bone, which i corrected in Drawing6.  Some of my longer drawings get a little smudgy and I need to start off with lighter strokes, however I do think a little smudge adds to the overall piece and shows its history adding character.  Overall, I am liking my progress and know some areas i would like to improve on and am excited to finish off the body.

Week 5

Tuesday-

The first half of class was dedicated to mannequins.  We started adding the adductors, which are more of the inner upper thigh.  They weren’t too hard; they were mostly all pretty thin long strips all overlapping and sort of fanning out from one another.  There are the “long”, “short”, “great”, and “graceful” adductors. As for the quads that were due for today, I was the only one who did the vastus laterali (outer thigh above the knee cap) too large, and I learned that I have to remember the rectus femoris (inner thigh above the knee cap) is a long teardrop shape for visual reference.

As for our gesture drawings today I focused on the ribs, the pelvis, and the thigh since that is what we learned about thus far and I didn’t want to try and add too much and then confuse myself since they are rushed as it is.  It is cool to see your progress through the day when you do so many quick drawings and focus on such a little area.  I definitely need a lot more work, but I am feeling better and starting to see the pelvic bone more.  Ironically enough, the three pictures I have from class today are a side view, a front view, and a back view.  For the back view, it really helps me to visualize the butterfly shape that is formed.

 

Thursday-
Drew the whole time today!  We worked up our gesture drawings to an hour long pose. It was alot of observing and trying to see the pelvic bone and surrounding muscles for me. It was nice to get time to step back and really look and not be so rushed with short poses. As for mannequins we are adding the hamstrings and the sartorius, the longest muscle in our body. Happy weekend everyone! :)

Week 4

We didn’t have much class this week; Tuesday’s class was cancelled due to Amy’s child being sick and Thursday a “walk-out” was in place for all students and teachers protesting Governor Walker’s budget proposal. The half hour we were in class for we added the pelvic bone into our simple gesture drawings.  Personally, I think the pelvic bone is the hardest to see thus far.  I feel like I was still observing when time ran up for the gesture drawings, trying to soak it all in still.  The top part is easiest to see where it sticks out, but I kind of get lost in the bottom of it.  I will definitely need to work on this area.  During some poses it was really hard to see and I just had to sort of guess.  It will help me to review the front, back, and side views we went over in class.  I was disappointed we only got to draw for a short time.  I did find out however that there are many open drawing times throughout the week and I really want to make it to a few of them for extra practice.  We are starting the thigh muscles on our clay mannequins for over the weekend.  I feel like mine are unproportionate somewhere because they don’t look quite right but I can’t figure out what yet, too thick at the top maybe.  Im guessing we are still going to add more muscles that is the problem. I’m going to need to compare it to an example in the classroom, still haven’t mastered from the book yet.  Progress on our mannequins so far:

Week 3

Rib Cage-

Rib Cage = Breath Life, anima, breath, animation.  The breastbone or sternum, meaning sword, is one of the main components to the rib cage.  The angle of the sternum determines the angle of the whole rib cage.  The top of the rib cage is a hole called the pit of the neck and continues down starting the sternum with the manubrium, or “handle”, a small rectangular shape.  The body, or “gladiolus”, the longest part of the sternum follows and then is ended by the xyphoid process, a small raised triangular area.  Coming down from the sternum are two long curved ribs followed by two short ones.  The actual ribs angle down (cartlidge comes up) therefore the neck is longer in the front compared to the back.  Ribs 11-12 are floating ribs and the lowest most point of the ribs is called the point of the 10^th rib.

We drew egg shapes for our gesture drawings as we studied the shape of the rib cage and the direction it flowed with the body.  It is cool to focus on one part of the body to really learn it.  It is definelty easiest to see the rib cage at the bottom where it sticks out at its diagonal right above the belly button. There was a pose where the model’s head was leaning toward me so it was like I was looking right down her opening and had to imagine the egg.  We had a girl model for the first time on Thursday; the only way you can really tell if it’s a boy or a girl just from their bone structure is from the pelvic bone.

Building the clay models proved harder than first expected.  The book can be very confusing with only showing one muscle at a time and it sometimes takes a great deal of observation to place it on the mannequin and then it still usually isn’t accurate. It is much easier to look off a model that has already been built.  So far we have put on the spinal erectors, the ab muscles, and now we are working on the glutes/hips.

Week2

Vertebral Column-

We started learning about the Vertebral Column today. In latin it literally means "to turn". The vertebral column is not a solid form but rather made of overlapping segments that are very mobile, however it does appear as one continuous line when drawn.  There are 4 curves that make up the vertebral column.  The two primary curves we are born with, which are the thoracic and sacrac, and they always stay the same.  The secondary curves, the cervical and lumbar start appearing with the evolution of muscles development (as in the neck) and movement.  These secondary curves curve toward the front of the body.  The primary and secondary curves counterbalance each other with alternating inward and outward curves.

It is crazy how much movement you actually see in the spinal column when you take time to look at it.  I liked our 15 and 30 second gesture drawings, focusing on just the backbone.  Looking at my page afterwards, filled with curvy lines, you could really see all the movement and motion going on, just through those simple lines.  Our 10 minute examinations of the spinal column really made me check over the exact curves that flow through the backbone by using measuring tools and looking closely at angles.

Muscles-

We learned about muscles today.  Muscles follow 3 rules: 1) they contract 2) they have attachments that always stay the same 3) they must cross at least 1 joint.  Tendons are the connective tissues that attach muscle to the bone and promote mobility! (not to be confused with ligaments that essentially limit motion) We also went over some vocabulary terms referencing angles/sides of the body.  Front/Back Anterior/Posterior.  Pelvis up(flex)/Pelvis down(extend) Ventral/Dorsal. Outside/Middle Lateral/Medial. Towards the head/Toward the tail Cranial/Caudal. We are getting started on sculpting our clay models, focusing on spinal erectors primarily the spinals, the longissimus, and the ilicostalis.

Introductions

Hi! I’m Leigh Schuh. I am from Appleton, WI and am currently a junior at UW-Stout majoring in graphic design.  I have found my drawings to be “painterly” because I use loose, flowing lines.  I make an overall controlled composition, but yet vague description.  I am able to see movement and freeness in each piece I draw.  Monet’s paintings are inspirational to me – his overall pieces from a distance are very visually intriguing, but up close, sections are less recognizable.  I crop images at unusual edges for striking appeal and individuality.  I like unique angles of perspective and dramatic images. At a graphic design angle, my computer work is clean cut and simple and I like to work on things such as magazine layouts. I love the problem solving involved in graphic design - finding logical and pleasing aesthetic solutions that fulfill the criteria of the problem at hand.  It is challenging yet satisfying.

This is a pastel drawing I did freshman year, in comparison to the 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper I was looking from. The subject being my sister.

Our first day of drawing in class got me really excited about the semester in Life Drawing! It is a little intimidating because the body is such a complex and exact figure that is very hard to master, so I am really eager to start to study the different muscles and sections of the body.   I want to get good at it and therefore benefit me in all areas of art.  Gesture drawings were a good ease into getting started and break the ice and focus on the overall movement the body is showing.  The contour drawings were challenging, and really made me focus on the slight changes in planes on the surface of the body.