Museum Visits

This week was a short one, but was amazing.

We took a field trip to the Walker Art Center, a museum I'm very familiar with.  They are currently showing a couple different featured exhibits.

The first was entitled "Naked" and was an interesting installment.  It was a live exhibition by two japanese artists, Eiko and Koma.  You are greeted by a huge sheet of scorched canvas encrusted with salt and covered in rooster feathers.  I wanted to reach out and touch it, to feel the contrast between the roughness of the canvas, burned to brittle dust in places; the sharp edges of the salt crystals, the silky smoothness of the feathers.
Behind the canvas the two artists lie in a bed of straw and feathers, unobtrusive benches placed all around for viewing.  They move sinuously, slowly, toward each other and away again.  The lights are dim and centered on the couple.  in the background water drips intermittently, breaking the perfect, reverent silence. This exhibit was interesting from a life drawing perspective because of the artists themselves.  Their painfully slow movements threw their muscles into sharp relief.  the flex of a calf or the tension in a hand was held for long enough to study.

The second was a large exhibit featuring the works of French artist Yves Klein.  I have mixed feelings about this artist's vision and his technique.  He worked almost exclusively in monochrome.  I was unimpressed by his color studies, but once the depth of texture was introduced I was more appreciative of his work.  I found the sponge and coral pieces particularly interesting.

I feel like the introduction of texture lent a massive amount of depth to his work.  By using a complex, organic form he was able to show the complexity of that color.

His city of the future designs were interesting, but nothing really spoke to me like the sponges.

I also had the pleasure of walking through the Sculpture Garden and introducing a friend to the Spoon and cherry.

Next we travelled to the University of Minnesota and visited the Bell Museum of Natural History, which, despite my growing up in the cities (some of my childhood was spent ON CAMPUS, as both my parents were students there) I had never been to!  

It. Was. Awesome.  The animals in the diorama were wonderful to look at.  So much texture.  But my favorite part was the touch and see room.  I think I spent more time talking to the staff about the various specimens than anything else.  As someone who spends a good deal of time with younger kids, I like to think I've never lost the child-like wonder and curiosity that so many people stifle as they grow intellectually.  So for me, the visceral pleasure of bones, pelts, and live reptiles was amazing.  

The walker may be a little more conceptual and high-brow than I typically like to indulge in, having more preference for the work of the masters and the pre-raphaelites, but I will DEFINITELY be going back to the Bell, and I'll be bringing friends.

Feet - More Complex than you might think

As someone who has always had trouble drawing the foot region in my sketches this particular exercise was enlightening and a bit frustrating.

The complexity of the foot starts from the bone structure:

The calcaneum is the heel bone, which bears a great amount of the bodies weight.  The talus is the "ankle" bone, providing a base for foot rotation.  the Cuboid, Cuneiform, and Navicular (from the word for boat, derivative of the bone's shape) bones begin to form the arch of the foot and add further weight-bearing strength to the foot.  The Metatarsals form the base of the digits, they help distribute weight evenly across the foot for balance.  The Phalanges, just like in the hand, are the digits that have somewhat independent mobility and allow the foot to grip things (however usually not particularly well).

These bones are relatively small, and shaped with precision for a precise purpose, and without the proper scale and the proper orientation and the proper curvature, the entire foot is suddenly misshapen and unnatural looking.

My drawing contains two feet: one in the medial position (from the inner arch of the foot) and the anterior (the front) getting a good look at the toes.  While the medial view was challenging, I'm pleased enough with how it came out.  The anterior view proved problematic due to what I perceive to be issues with foreshortening.

With an anterior view of the foot you are dealing with a shape that as it narrows, grows taller and overall thicker and this particular view was very very challenging and I am not pleased with the results.  

I have drawn simplified versions of the foot in other drawings since, and the more thorough understanding of the underlying structure has improved these executions, however I think I will continue to struggle with this complex form in detailed studies.  And the only remedy is, of course, more practice.

Week 2 - Making Connections

Last week I was sick, so rather than talk about classwork (which I obviously was not present for) I'm going to talk about connecting the skills learned in this class with my aspirational career: Concept Design.

Networking.  Networking, networking, networking.  It may seem like it has little to do with a students experience in a life drawing course, but that assumption (in my case at least) would be erroneous.
I previously mentioned my acquaintance with Ruth Thompson, and she shared with me some wonderful blogs and information about various classes and conferences, but all of her information paled in comparison when I saw some of her rough sketches.  She uses cross-contour, heavily, in her work.  (photos of sketches to follow, pending Ruth's permission).
It's one thing to have a teacher say "This is relevant", it's another to see how it benefits your own work, but it's something entirely different to see someone whose work you admire to use (20 years AFTER school) the techniques that you are currently using.  It seems childish to be comforted by this validation, but I am, somehow, comforted by it.
"But what does cross-contour have to do with networking?" you may ask.  Well it doesn't have anything to do with it, but Networking is about meeting people to learn new things to meet new people to expand your point of view.  So that's what networking has to do with cross-contour.
I will (hopefully) soon get a chance to speak with concept artists from Blizzard and RavenSoft game studios in order to get a feel for what I should be working on.  To me, life drawing is a stepping stone to greater artistic ability.  As a concept artist I will be expected to draw not only from life, but to be able to draw life-like images from my own imagination.  There is little in the way of instruction on this particular skill set, I must pave my own way, draw my own conclusions, and practice-practice-practice!
Below is my first set of concept drawings for this semester  A stylized robot character:

These are first-draft sketches, make no mistake, I am aware of the roughness here.  But I will be posting progressive drafts of my concept design along with my life drawing work in order to catalog their side-by-side progression.

One thing that life drawing and concept design have in common is that they both require forethought to create a polished, high quality final image.  Concepts may start as random sketches but eventually many details will come into play and will all be part of a greater whole.  The minor details in this early sketch alone are part of a greater overruling world.

Similarly, in life drawing it benefits the artist to examine and think about their subject before ever lifting arm to touch tool to paper.  The slightest shift of the spinal column, the tension in a muscle, the tiniest quirk in an expression can change the entire tone of a drawing.

One thing that I want to particularly look at (for use in my concept art) is mark making.  I've been studying Todd Lockwood's body of work on and off for several years.  Particularly his line drawings, used heavily in reference books for Dungeons and Dragons.  The image below is a concept piece for a basilisk.  This compex creature is elegantly rendered with only a few different types of line.  But it is an undeniably elegant line drawing of a creature that exists only in the imagination.

This is what I'm aiming for.

Week 1 - Learning to let go

While none of the activities we explored this week were particularly new or foreign to me, they seemed somehow fresher, more relevant, than ever before.

The first exercise - blind contour drawings of our lovely little shells - is an exercise I've done many times in art classes throughout my education.  But with a subject so complex, and so dangerously familiar, it would be easy to become overwhelmed and start to draw what you know rather than what you see.  It might also be frustrating to not be able to see what you are working on.  However these limitations were not so restricting as they were liberating.
Not having/being able to look at my work allowed/forced me to focus more acutely on my shell.  I started to learn the rhythms of the spiny growths that make my shell unique and one of a kind.  I began to appreciate the seemingly infinite depth of the glossy cavern within the shell, once home to a living creature.  But most of all it simply made me look, and look hard, and really focus in ways I don't think I've ever focused when drawing from life.

My horizons were, however, broadened by the use of a nude model.  The gestural drawings were thoroughly enjoyable for me, in addition to being a learning experience.  It was good to let go of self-judgement and just think about the way lines on the body go together.  Without that need to create something that looks recognizably human (to the untrained eye) I found that I could focus more on my technique.  That is the speed of my strokes, the pressure of hand, re-learning to muse my whole body to draw.  It was still an exercise in self evaluation but it was more about the process than the product, which is an unusual and uncommon phenomenon in my experience.

Gesture 1 - Gesture 2 - Gesture 3 - Gesture/Cross Contour

At the close of the week I felt very thankful to be part of this class, but also to be ready to take this class.  Today I spoke to a woman (Ruth Thompson) who makes her living creating beautiful drawings and paintings.  But I was surprised by the things we had in common, despite the disparate levels of experience and education;  We both want to learn more about and be better at what we do respectively.  We both feel like we should be drawing more and always carry our sketchbooks and pencils, so we never have an excuse not to draw.  And we are both able to look at our own work and say, “This is good, but I can do better.”  It is that last quality – a sense of pride in our work but also the ability to step back and objectively look at our work and seek improvement from ourselves.

Last but not least, I learned that there is nothing better for your concentration than a good pair of shoes.

Life from Art

What does it mean to be an artist?  What does it mean to be a designer?   These are questions that are frequently discussed in my circle of friends.  I aspire to both titles.  As an artist I can appreciate the play of color, texture, and line within a piece of art.  Whether a piece of organic sculpture, an exquisitely worked piece of metal, or a sumptuous garment, my life is filled with works of art.  But as a designer I can appreciate the precision of a well-tailored piece of clothing, the forethought and research put into a piece of metal work, or the structural magnificence of monumental works.

But why I am an artist is a question with a much simpler answer.

I am an artist because I am compelled to create.  Ever since childhood, as long as I can recall, I have always loved to create something from (seemingly) nothing.  Whether that was drawing, painting and later writing and creating costumes and clothes.

But beyond my compulsion is a passion for always bettering myself, my work, my craft.  That is why I am here.  Here at UW Stout, here in this life drawing course.  I want to be the best artist and the best designer that I possibly can.  This will only be achieved through practicing my craft, working hard, and viewing my work with a keen and critical eye.

The main reason I want to take this life drawing course is to learn to draw from what I see more accurately.  I've done stylistic drawing, and no small amount of still life, but so little of my instruction has been focused on truly realistic representations.

I want to pursue a career as a concept artist in the video game industry and in order to do this, I must improve my drawing skills and develop a unique and singular style in my drawing.

An example of a concept artists finished piece to give to a character modeller*

A character Design study for Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" universe.*

I know that through practice and perseverance I will excel and be successful in my endeavors in this course and in life.

*The above images are not my own creations, they are examples of the work I wish to produce in the future.