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.