MIDTERM

At this point in the semester I have learned a lot about my drawing skills and knowledge of the human form. In the beginning I didn't know anything about drawing the human body, or how the muscles were shaped and attached. I always tried to avoid drawing people and faces in my earlier drawing classes because it was not one of my strong points at all. I am glad I am taking this class; I have grown a lot just in this first half of the semester. We started with bones and muscles of the spine and back and then we moved on to the rib cage. After learning the main shape of the rib cage we moved on to the pelvis and then to the thigh. I learned a lot about how muscles work and what they are supposed to look like while building the manikins. I have learned about contraction, attachments, joints, and ligaments. Also we learned all the different views of the manikins; such as anterior, posterior, ventral, and dorsal, just to name a few. I have such a better understanding of how to even approach and start a drawing of a person now that I am in this class. With the tools that I have learned thus far, it is so much easier to begin a drawing. I feel like every day I grow and learn something new.

Some of my weaknesses would be understanding foreshortening. I seem to struggle with understanding the angles and the shortening part of the object I am drawing. Another weakness would be the contour drawings. The first shell drawing was hard for me to do. It was hard to draw and convey on paper what I was seeing while looking at the shell. I also struggle with the muscle building part. It is hard to understand sometimes how big the muscles should be and what they should look like when they are all put together. Some strengths I have are my gesture drawings and the longer drawings we do. Drawing has never been a strength for me but when we get to do gesture drawings and the longer 30-60 minute drawings it is nice to see that I don't struggle through them as much as I thought I would. I like the feeling of accomplishment at the end of a long drawing.

I would like to get better at contour drawings. When done well, they look really interesting and I would love to improve my skills when it comes to contour drawings. Also it would be fun to learn about drawing faces. I'm not sure if we get to that in this class but I know I have no idea how to even begin to make a face look realistic, so that would be great to learn about too!

Here is the link to my Photobucket page:

http://s604.photobucket.com/albums/tt122/welnae/