This semester has been pretty interesting for me because I wasn't exactly sure what to expect when I came into this class. At first I was wary of the whole concept of studying the human body, not that I don't see the beauty, rather I wasn't necessary comfortable staring at it. It turns out that I wasn't uncomfortable at all because the classroom setting gave me an odd sense of confidence in both my purpose and the model's. This semester I have learned a great deal about the human form and the muscles that make up the human form and cause us to move in the ways that we do. I will regret saying that I still have only a general knowledge of the muscles and I wish that I could look at the figure and point out the names and their exact funtion, I can usually point out where the muscles connect and how they are in comparison to the body but that is really quite different than having to memorize all of the names. Hopefully I will improve on that over the course of the second half of the semester. Since day one of this class I feel as if I haven't improved as much as I'd like to and I think this is partially because of the information that flows through my brain while drawing. The beginning of the semesters always seems drawn out and more introductory than the middle where we're all running around like chickens with our heads cut off. The way that this relates to life drawing is because when I look for so long at the figure I find myself trying to find every little detail and how they all flow together, and it seems to take away from the real focus of the drawing. For some people this might be helpful but for me it seems that it's more difficult to draw and think at the same time... Who said that women were good at multi-tasking? Don't get me wrong, I like knowing the information, it just seems to hinder more than help me because throughout my whole life I have made a practice out of over analyzing things. Throughout the second half of the semester I would like to learn to tie the figure into a more emotional context. I think that it would be cool to be able to work on a figure drawing outside of class where the figure can become more involved in a different context, or become more personal as something that we can study continuously. I really do enjoy this class, as of right now I am at a happy medium, and I hope that as we progress I will be able to learn more and improve in all that we have been working on thus far and all that we continue to learn. The reason as to why I chose this picture for my post is because I found that when I began to look back at my drawings, and actually spent time photographing and making mental notes, I realized just how beautiful some of the compositions of our gesture drawings can be. This one stood out most to me because of the way that both the contrast of the vine v. compressed and the finished figure v. the egg look in the end. I feel as if having all of these changes on one page has helped me in the way of being able to look back and see a progression. I hope that you all have beautiful and safe spring breaks.
