RIB.CAGE.STUDY.

DEGAS, Woman Bathing in a Shallow Tub, c.1886 (original pastel on paper)

DEGAS, The Tub, pastel

I am realizing more and more every day that the relationship between knowledge of the human anatomy and skilled figure drawing or painting is incredibly crucial. You can't create a piece of work portraying a living human if you don't understand the characteristics of the body that give it life. The rib cage is one of the keys to unlocking the ability to give these figures life. Upon study a person in any position or pose you have to be able to analyze their body and how exactly they are arranging themself to achieve this. The ribcage is so crucial because it is almost the entire mass of the upper body. Learning to, in a way, x-ray the body when study it has helped me visualize exactly how certain parts create a pose and work with all the other body parts to create a drawing filled with life. In these works by Degas, he portrays the figures of women very elegantly showing ribcage's breathing life and how they taper down to a slender female waist and continue to their hips. These shots show great treatment of the ribcage forshortened as well maintaining a lively and realistic feel.

THIRTY.MINUTE.DRAWINGS.

I came into this class very excited to improve my drawing and quick sketching ability of the human body. I feel I have a fairly good understanding of basic drawing skills and techniques, but human body understanding has always been a struggle for me. Beginning with the gesture drawings are extremely benefitial because I think for a lot of people as well as myself, it goes against every natural feeling we have about our drawing. It limits us to such a short little window of time to capture an entire body gesture forcing us to quickly place our lines on the page as close to how we are interpreting them with our eyes. The problem is, often they don't turn out to be the work of art we are likely to proudly show off. But once this initial shock is overcome, the benefits become more apparent. I feel they have significantly improved my longer figure study drawings. I must say I was very surprised with the result of my first drawing (bottom of the four). I feel it is one of the stronger compositions compared to the ones that followed. I do feel that in the long run with the practice that we get in this class and my knowledge of the human anatomy my drawing abilities will continue to grow.

Just a little taste...a very blurry taste

Drawing II: Two Part Fruit Study

First off I would like to appologize for the poor quality of these pictures im posting, they were all captured on a cell phone camera which doesn't do colors justice so again sorry.

These two drawings, both done in chalk pastels, were from my drawing two class of last year.

The first one, "B-A-N-A-N-A-S", was a pretty straight forward approach on the task of capturing a type of fruit on a complementary colored paper. I feel it turned out very well considering the initial approach I was headed in for this particular drawing. I focused on capturing the image in a very realistic sense so spent great time tweaking shades and textures until I was satisfied, which was an feeling that remained through completing this piece.

The second, cleverly titled, "Banana Gat," was the result of the second portion of the project, which involved human interaction with said fruit. This was a much different approach where a far different emotion is produced. A realistic sense remains in terms of shading and details, but a different stroke and texture is involved, as well as the overall comical composition. This is obbviously less serious, but still a strong piece.