So is the life of a procrastinator.

This week we did a lot of sketching of our female model.  On Thursday I had one of those 'Ah-ha' moments.  For some reason it felt like connection between my hand and mind just clicked and I felt more in tune with the model and my paper.  I have a suspicion that this will be short lived, but I felt a burst of excitement all the same.  It is reassuring to feel like you are making progress instead of the banging-your-head-against-the-wall feeling that I have had so far.

Next week we will be getting the requirements for our midterm.  I hope it is not to intensive because I feel that I am currently falling behind in everything right now.  One of those internal panics where I wish I could get off work, lock myself in a room with no contact until I would emerge two days later completely caught up and everything looks PHENOMENAL.   *sigh*  But so is the life of a procrastinator...

So, shell drawings were due tuesday as I mentioned in a earlier thread.  I was very happy with mine although my favorite part of critiques is seeing everyones' drawings.  I remember Matt did a particularly beautiful drawing that gave the shell a hazy monolithic appearance.  I will see if I can link it or snag a photo.

- Here is mine!  I liked the capture of all those pesky little nubs and that I was able to avoid outlining the shell.  I could work on creating even more line variation and exaggerating the curves.

Life Drawing minus the drawing..

So the news about life drawing is . . . there is no news!!  Tuesday was too hot for a model so we did a lecture on the butt muscles.  Aren't the multicolored chalks beautiful??  I just love how all the vivid muscles look together.  Even Alisha couldn't help but show her love.

After that we were released for the day which was wonderful because the weather lately has been amazing. 70s in OCTOBER!?!?  I wore a dress yesterday, A DRESS!! You would think it was Labor Day weekend.  

Well, Thursday class rolled around and class was cancelled because our professor was sick!  I really hope she didn't catch that nasty flu that is floating around.  With any luck she will feel better soon, but having a suddenly free three hours was the best possible end to the week!!  Grabbed some stir fry at the Terrace and helped my roommate hide the cat at a friend's while our apartment had some tours go through.  See, we are allowed to have pets but it is $25 a month.  Now this seems kinda steep to me.  This apartment has had pets in it before so we are not lowering its value AND it would seem that a security deposit (ensuring that the cat doesn't piss all over and ruin the carpeting) would suffice.  $300 a year in their pocket doesn't seem fair.  I tried talking reason to the owners, but they didn't want to discuss the matter.  So what would a responsible adult do?  Have a cat in secret OF COURSE!!  Though, to be fair, she is not our cat, we are cat sitting, but we have a had her for about 5 months so it is a fuzzy line we are walking . . . . but look how CUTE she is!!

ANYWAY, back to Life Drawing.  Contour shell drawing due Tuesday (which I am sure I will post in the near future) and there are more muscles to build on our manikin.  (He's getting a butt!!)  Here is an example of a manikin our prof keeps in the classroom and it is AMAZING!!  I would show you mine, but I don't think I will on this post - I don't think I could handle the shame. Maybe in a couple weeks ;)

Let's pretend last week didn't happen . . .

What a ridiculous week it was!  To be honest, I didn't have a whole lot of time for life drawing.  The project for my ID class was due on thursday and there were not enough hours in the day!!  So after no sleep, I stumble into drawing class an hour late (-hang head in shame-), but I hope our professor wasn't too upset.  Honestly, I was converting my InDesign document to a PDF up until I left and was ready to apply myself as much as I could in the time remaining.  That day we were drawing with our arms outstretched so that we could use our whole arm to draw.  And if this new technique wasn't enough, we were encouraged to draw as light as possible.

I was not doing well to begin with.  I need to get a pencil because this chunk of conte is really cramping my style.  Or maybe I should just stop making excuses and learn how to draw with a delicate hand.  Thankfully my classmates were really helpful and near the end things were starting to look up.  I was standing an arm's length away, my drawings were getting lighter by the minute and my arm was CRAMPING SO BAD!!  It is bad enough that I feel I should get a gym pass for every other aspect of my life, but DRAWING CLASS!?!   . . . guess who will be holding pencils an arms length away during this week's Office episode. ("this guy!")

But in other exciting news, my ID presentation went super well.  We had to design coat hangers (the kind that go in your closet) and all in all I was pretty proud of mine.  AND my prof really liked the presentation so . . . woot woot!

And guess what happened Sunday!  I found a BLACK WIDOW SPIDER in a bunch of grapes I bought!!  It was basically dead, but that didn't stop me from running around the apartment flailing my arms and yelling like there was a murderer in my closet.  Now, we did a little research and black widows are the most poisonous spider in the US, but it is not very common to die from a bite because they do not release a lot of venom.  Well, this is all well and good, but when you are digging for some green grapes to snack on and discover one of these babies, the fact that less than 2% of bites are fatal is not very reassuring.

But no one had to be rushed to the hospital and after my roommate assured me that the spider was in no condition to leap across the room and plunge its fangs in to my neck I started to calm down.  But here she is in all her glory - PROOF!

Not a Fan of Contour Drawings

As you may be able to gather from the title, I am not a fan of contour drawings.  I am not bad at putting muscles on the manikin and my figures in my gesture drawings only have torsos that are slightly too long, but I cannot wrap my mind around the contour.  My figure looks thick and heavy.  The subtlety of flesh is completely lost on me.  And the more I try the more I get frustrated.  Our teacher reminded us that we should not feel angry because these things would take time to learn, but I can’t help it. 

It is a little presumptuous to assume that I should have this down pat, but I would really like to get the curves down and see the form fill its space.  Ugh, I am just going to have to settle down and remember that practice makes perfect.

I wish I had more to write on this week, but I was only able to make it to one class period last week.  Life sometimes causes problems when you would rather it not, and I was forced to do some damage control.  Sorry to be vague (sounds like I am writing a coy facebook status), but let me assure you that it is not very exciting.  Just one of those times where a bunch of little things all stack up at once and if they were not dealt with tears would be inevitable.

So I vow to be patient with myself this week and stay motivated.  And no missing class!!

PS. One of my guy friends is very thin and has the amazing attribute of having the contour of every vein and muscle in his entire body visible on his skin. I think he would be so helpful in learning to draw the human figure!  Do you think after a case of beer and the promise that he can still wear boxers I will have a model for some extra practice?