Winter Break is over

Well winter break is over and I never updated this blog during that time. I get very lazy it seems. I will try to make better habits to share my art in the future because I noticed my views went down dramatically. Oh well... 

So new semester at TAD. I feel a lot more comfortable with the structure and not to worry about all the classes I'm taking which are Color/Composition, Light/Form, Figure2, Media1,  and Cast Drawing.

Color/Comp has been pretty straight forward, no real new stuff right now but doing the studies during class has served as one of those exercises I know I should do but I just dont as often as I'd want. I also had to do a little intro piece of me, so I'll show it here. I wish I could have had more space since I have so many things that influence me but breaking it to the bare bones (and sometimes the more interesting ones that isn't shared by everyone) I choose this.

Figure Drawing 2! Yep thats right #2. I really enjoy figure drawing and having 3 classes of it in the TAD program is good to know. The way we are doing right now is a lot more natural for me then using charcoal or pastel and building up shape. What we are learning right now though is how to simplify the form so that you work out perspective, proportion, gesture issues early while leaving muscle and detail for later.

Done in about 15 minutes each. Foreshortening was emphasized as was

drawing through the form.

15 each. Graphite pencil. Dots indicate where bone is visible.

Light and form class has been pretty simple and kind of relaxing. Its a weird feeling where I'm not exactly learning anything new right now but I'm working on something I dont really do at all. Like these boxes. They are a lot looser than the perspective class ones, its really just about grasping three dimension. My next assignment is painting a head over an egg... I doubt I will be as relaxed with that one.

Media class will be grazing over a few different tools to learn that could enhance a drawing/painting. Its really all about marks and the variety that you can make not so much anything else (except they are touched upon in class). We're starting with graphite and charcoal. This piece was done by Nicolai Fechin. Mine is on the right side. Up side, I really focused on the variety the way he draws. I tried my hardest mimicking the speed but I lost the precision that comes from skill. 

Down side, I pushed the features down which might have been the cause of some of the distortion. Overall, fun piece. The next step is applying it to a drawing of my own.

Done with graphite pencil, charcoal pencil, and on drawing paper.

Size is about 8-10"

Cast drawing... this class has been making me stress out. Not with the work i'll be doing, not with the long hours it will take on a single image... No, its the set up. I feel like I over thought it in the beginning but now I'm getting closer to achieving the setup (well...at least the place for it anyway).  

While we work on the setup, we are also doing some excersice. This is nice since I did not want to jump head first into the piece. This one down here is something I will try to do over and over again. Its drawing the same image next to it then putting it over the original and seeing where you went wrong. The red indicates bad, yellow okay, and green is good.  As you can see, just a little shift can ruin well placed lines from being exact.

Getting better the more I try

Sketchbook assignment was pretty cool since I tried using markers. Its a whole lot easier to control my values then to play half the time with the pencil. I might try ink washes next or colored pencil. I don't know if its me or the graphite pencil, but it was hard to work with.

Some of the good things that came out of this is how i arrange within the picture plane. I must start putting boxes over my stuff because it really shows how this would read as a bigger piece. The bad was not experimenting enough with putting the still life objects in different angle and ALL THE TANGENTS that just were not obvious when I was doing it.

Quick thumbs: tripod, ps1 controller, candle holder

Linear perspective and its ellipses. They are making a bit more sense but still its hard. I barely EVER do this kind of stuff. It just shows  how much I must work in this class. I did get the book Creative Perspective which has nice examples that work with the class. I will try to do stuff from that book as well. So not much to say for now, maybe later though i'll be drawing some awesome stuff.

Figure drawing was all about long drawings. It feel like I was able to get the general idea of the drawing in about 25 to 35 minutes minus a few proportion details. While the later time was all about pushing and pulling the form. I enjoyed these a lot. You can see because I only needed one.

I need to work on pushing the figure from the background and not let the model blend in. It would create a more striking silhouette versus a muddy mess. I also need to clarify detail in the focal and blur out the detail in the non focal.

However, I am happy to see my improvement most of all. I'm having a lot more fun doing stuff I want to and less time fighting over certain aspects like the medium or proportions.

2 hours

1 hour

30 minute

4 hours

Forms broken down and drawing with light

The best way to understand complexity is to break it down into simple shapes. However, it can be really hard to see the lines that really show the true form. I have some problems when it comes to that. But the more i practice with it, the better I am getting. Soon, I should try lighting some of these figures.

10 minute pencil, understanding form with wires and blocks

This was an optional assignment for photography that I really wanted to do.  They are long exposures using the night time photography mode on my camera. There is no light except the little flashlight that I took a part. By shining it on and off, I was able to get an interesting effect.

shinku...Hadouken

A blaze of light made by a small light.

And made by a shutter speed of 15 or 30 seconds.

I have gotten a lot better with cubes. Why all this for just a simple shape? Because many if not all things can just be broken down into this shape. It's also helping my see perspective. However, I still have a way to go. The more I do, the better I can see my early mistakes.

I will never see the end of cubes, never.