LAST BLOG!!!!

It was a good semester. I think it was more successful than life drawing one for some reason. Maybe because i knew what to look for in this class. I had expectations. I think it was a great semester. i really got into the swing of things and enjoyed what i was drawing. I not only saw my skills excel, but also the skills of my classmates.

Anyways, here is some of my better things that i created this semester. The last skeleton drawing really was tough, but so good to get done. I feel like a really wrangled the assignment and did a lot better than i thought i would!

last week?

GOOD LORD! i havent blogged in weeks. I was pretty proud of myself this semester--you know, keeping up with the good ol' blog. But lately its been slacking. Id like to blame it on finals and pre finals and projects, but i should really be able to be on top of things like a lil' blog. We have been working on the full skeletons and its been freaking me out! Its no longer just focusing on one area. There are so many small little details that are hard to pay attention to. I am such a 'big picture' person, its hard for me to really look closely. Ill post pictures of the finished product when im done after our show!!

wa-oh, wa-oh.

whoops. i guess im not very good at keeping up with blogs. Its a stressful time of year. Many people can argue that thanksgiving break helps them out, and they get all rested up for the last kick of the semester. Not this girl. I stayed in menomonie this year (for the second year in the row) due to poor planning on my mother and sister's part. I'm not complaining though. I got a lot of stuff figured out and done, but I still have a lot to go. Feeling rested is hardly whats happening with me. I'm feeling stressed to say the least.

Im going to try to pull myself together and really try to nail this final project. its interesting trying to draw on a piece of paper that is practically my size. its exciting though. we'll see where this goes!

portraits.

This week and last week we did portraits. Man, it is hard to do. Its hard to make it resemble the person you are drawing. I had fun though. I was really genuinely interested in drawing these figures. I think the hardest day was the modeling day. Sitting there for 3 hours completely still is so hard. Now i know why not everyone models for life drawing classes. haha.

it was...CHICAGO.

I went to chicago this weekend with the fine arts association. It was a crazy and fun weekend, but now I am in such a haze--I just don't even know what to do with myself.

We went to the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Institute of Art. At the mca there was a Luc Tuymans show that was pretty interesting. It was a large body of his work, so there were a lot of hit and misses with me. He had a lot of different jumps in concepts in his work, but they were generally all addressed the similarly. Naturally, some pieces worked better than others.

Im excited to do more drawings this week in life drawing. I really like seeing that i am able to draw better and more realistically. At this point in my college career i feel like the conceptual part of my art is really coming forward and that learning all of the basic techniques is falling back. I mean, when I think back to my first year at stout, it was all about drawing for hours at a time staring at still lives. I think what I'm getting at is that its nice to be able to still work on purely visual and technical skills.

yep.

This week in class i messed around a lot. Haha. Ok, so i didnt just have fun, i practiced drawing too. These portraits are going to be difficult, but they have my attention that's for sure. Im excited to start going with these portraits. Its kind of scary though. Its scary because you expect so much out of yourself and you could (and most likely) will be let down. I mean, you can get that if any drawing. However, with most drawings you can fudge it up a little and it will still capture a likeness. When drawing a person, you could get the proportion wrong in the nose and the whole portrait looks different. It takes a lot of patience.

Apparently this blog is dedicated to Leslie Barlow, considering she is in every picture. haha. HERE'S TO YOU, SICKY!

drawing from memory.

Oh, man. When i was presented with this idea i was just as shocked as the rest of the class. We have spent so many hours just studying the skull and learning all the pieces and parts, and the idea of memorizing all of their correct placements is kind of daunting.

Even though these drawings look a lot more generalized than the skulls i have been drawing, I still am happy with the outcome--I didnt do so bad! I think the most fun part was correcting the skull. I saw that I wasn't nearly as off as I thought when I was drawing the skulls from memory. Also, correcting the drawings made me realize how much i had learned in the class. It was so easy to figure out what went wrong.

The top two images were from memory and the black charcoal in the bottom three were from memory. The red/brown color was the corrections. Despite my generally positive outlook on this activity, I am still nervous about the test on monday! Holy mackerel, this is going to be tough.

what i did this week. whiplashed.

this week was...busy. everything always is.

Sculpture 2 had a show in the student gallery this past week and i spent a lot of time in the gallery. I really like how the show turned out. I think it was good especially considering we only had about a week to come up with the idea and execute it. By the end of the week I really ended up appreciating the space. The visuals along with the overlapping songs had a great effect on the space. I really liked how the viewer was able to pick out songs from the initial mess of sound depending on their past experiences or place in the room.

Anyways, i havent painted much since this summer. Since i'm not in a painting class now (DUMB I KNOW) i really need to start getting on that and making things. I think giving myself painting time will give me time to be patient and slow down, which will be good for life drawing. Its hard trying to concentrate on something so tedious as life drawing. Dont get me wrong though, i really enjoy drawing. Its just hard to get to that 'place' when you are used to running around all the time. Time to start learning how to balance.

we've been together since i was born.

holy man. The semester is really speeding forward fast. I can't believe its october already! Ive already been in one show in the student gallery, and now this upcoming week advanced sculpture is having a show in the student gallery. Two shows in two weeks! oh man. Everyone go see it!

I'm having a hard time getting myself to have patience in life drawing two. Its like trying to slam on the breaks when you are speeding along at 60 miles per hour. I have a lot of class and assignments and then work on top of that. Its hard to just stop, relax, and draw. But regardless of my lack of patience, i think i'm improving a lot anyways. I'm a big picture person, so being able to see all of the small details in the skulls is surprising me.

Anyways, the top picture is a little watercolor study i did. I've never really painted with watercolors much before, but i've slowly been able to get into it. Its good for sketchbooking. The second photo is the first skull drawing i did. Obviously i wasn't really focusing while drawing this first one. I didn't pay attention to details as much. I kind of like the last drawing. I think im starting to get the hang of making the form seem 3d. starting.

half of the time we're gone, but we don't know where.

Getting back into the swing of things! I thought it would take me longer to feel comfortable with charcoal in hand again, but its been surprisingly fast to catch on this semester. I guess it is because there was only a summer since my last drawing. Whereas when i took life drawing one, it had been a solid year without any extreme drawing. I kind of caught myself off guard with how well i have started off. Of course, i still have tons to learn. I think some of my proportions are off still. Hopefully that will get better as the semester goes on.

Some things that i want to work on this semester are line quality and patience. I get too antsy with drawings. Slowing down and taking time to observe and appreciate every mark is something that I'm going to try to aim for. At this point in my college career, it's hard for me to just...relax. Maybe not necessarily relax, but just getting into the mindset of being calm and patient enough to just think about drawing. Work and school and life are always wearing me out these days. Oofta. Here's to a good semester.

LIFE DRAWING TWO!

Im excited to take life drawing two. I was excited for life drawing one, but it kind of was put on a back burner to some of the other classes i was taking. This semester, I plan to make it more of a priority and get more out of it than i did last semester. I'm definitely excited to learn more about the skull and bone structures.

My major is studio art with a concentration in painting and a minor in photography.

Despite being busy with work and other odd life predicaments, I have still found time to make art. Well, this summer i did take my second painting 3 class. It was an awesome class to just make stuff for hours. I've continued this series dealing with aging, death, and a personal relationship with my grandma. I dont know how i feel about the entire series, but i like some pieces i've made.

I've also recently started shooting film again with my old 35mm camera from what i think is the 70's (maybe earlier?). I havent developed them yet, but im pretty excited for them.

final time.

Man, life drawing was tough to keep up with for me. Well, maybe not even that. Its just that it was, for some reason, put on a back burner. Maybe its because I haven't taken a drawing class in 2 years or maybe its because all of my other classes sucked every last drop of patience out of me. It was probably both.

Another thing that was relatively difficult for me was the balance between an upper level class to a beginning level class. My painting 3 class is all about developing your work the way you want to. It was hard for me to switch back to doing representational work and draw exactly what i saw.

I don't think that I really took as much advantage as I could have of the course, but I feel like I did learn a lot despite all of my complaining. I think that line quality and patience became really important to me as the semester progressed. I can definitely see my progress throughout the semester. Everything in this class was helpful to my art and understanding of the human body so i decided to give life drawing another chance and take life drawing 2 next semester.

here are my photos of the semester.

I know the bulb-y part of the shell looks off, but I like how stylized my second ink shell drawing turned out. I especially like the skinny end because of the lack of information given to the viewer.

Last class time (wednesday) I was totally in the zone. Those long poses and being able to listen to my music were great. I felt totally in the moment and I felt like i was really starting to grasp all of the studies we have been doing so far. I'll post some pictures after monday's class.

Let's see what happens now.

Life drawing is a struggle for me. I don't think its the class its self. I think that its just my life. I've been ridiculously busy and have had to prioritize. I know life drawing is important, but for some reason it's the class that has taken the back burner. I'm going to try to fix what I have done (or lack thereof) before the end of the semester. This is probably just a terrible time to take this class, and thats my fault. Oofta.

midterm

I think that the most helpful thing that I have learned in life drawing so far has been proportions. The short drawings of the simple drawings of just the spine and the ribcage have seemed to helped me the most.

I think that my biggest weakness in this class is drawing to dark. I've always had a heavy hand, and its hard to go back and adjust the form when the drawing gets all messy. I also think that maniken is another weakness. I'n not very patient with perfecting the muscles. I would like to spend more time on the maniken second semester so that i can really understand the movement and placement of the muscles.

drawings here.

regular study and blind contour

Walker visit

This painting is by John Currin. It is called Park City Grill. He painted in 2000. The piece is oil paint on 38"x30" canvas.

I think that this piece is awesome. It was in the chairs and binoculars show/room. I have seen John Currin's work before, so it was exciting for me to see one of his pieces in the Walker (even if i did have to look at it through the binoculars). I was attracted to his painting, being a painter myself, for obvious reasons. His paintings are so smooth and realistically painted. His proportions are exaggerated which reminds me of old pieces in the past that distorted the human figure.

Channeled Whelk Shell

Busycotpus canaliculatus

The Whelk shell has grooves between the coils of the top of the shell. It is very round and can grow up to 12 inches in length. They are pear shaped (fat at the top and pointy at the bottom). This shell houses hermit crabs when its empty.

http://oceanica.cofc.edu/shellguide/shells/channelwhelk.htm

whoopsi.

I am terrible at remembering to update this blog. I'm going to get better though. I'm setting up ways to remember, that will hopefully work.

Life drawing is a lot of fun so far. I really like looking at the forms and really getting a chance to practice. I enjoy how much time we spend on correcting the proportions of the body. One thing that I am really struggling with is how to draw lightly. I think drawing with soft charcoal is partly to blame, so I am going to try a different tool. Also, line variation is hard to achieve with soft charcoal. Hopefully changing the drawing tool will help.

Hi, I'm Missy.

So, after I made this account I realized that I sounded a bit cocky with the name of my url. I really didn't mean it. Its actually taken from a man man song and its supposed to be top drawer (like dresser drawer) and I thought it was funny that drawer and drawer were spelled the same. Maybe its not so funny. ha, so there's that.

I am a junior painting major at Stout. I'm really excited for this class because I have always been really interested in the human body. I took anatomy and physiology in high school and had a lot of fun dissecting fetal pigs and cats, going to the body world exhibit, and poking around in some human cadavers. I think this class will be beneficial to my work and really help me understand the human form more.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/broken_face/