Breaking Free

With the end of the semester drawing near I find myself buried under huge workload. The bigger this pile gets the more I enjoy my clay time. This has become a little piece of downtime amongst loads of computer work. It’s a little sad that homework is now downtime, but you’ve got to take your luck where you find it I guess. My enjoyment in the mannequin is despite the fact that they are getting indisputably more difficult. The muscles in the forearm especially so. They are thin, fiddly and layered over one another.

The drawings, which were being difficult are easier than before. I seem to have broken out of my Spring break rut. About time too! Adding the upper arm and forearm was frustrating, both on Monday and Wednesday. Monday’s long drawing was dead on the front, not even close to a three quarter view. I fought for this one but it still ended up looking flat and non-dynamic. Wednesday’s work started much the same way. The new way of doing gestures turned out awkward and spagetti like figures, as though I had forgotten all the anatomy I have learnt. But, after lots and lots of struggling with angles and foreshortening and proportion I think I got a decent drawing. During the last ten minutes, I moved and drew as I usually would, quickly and fluidly and the arm turned out well. After finally churning out some good drawings I have realized that when I over-think a pose that it just turns out awkward.

I have been trying to work on what Amy said on my midterm sheet, which was that I should work on my line variation. I have never been very good at this, I just don’t know where to start. I was trying to make lines in shadowed areas darker and I am not sure how successful this has been.