Last week in life drawing we began working on visualizing the rib cage which is much like an egg shape in space. It is interesting how we are learning about the the main skeletal structures along with the muscles that work with them. I added a couple of images of my manikan. I worked on the back muscles a bit more to make them a bit more accurate (I think) before I started on the abs. I feel that working on the muscles really does help to understand how to draw figures. I also begin thinking a lot about how this all works together. Cool stuff.

On another note, I'm excited for the museum trip on Wednesday!

My Life Drawing shell is called a Conch Shell. Gastropod mollusks use these shells as their homes! The shells are a built-up exoskeleton of calcium carbonate. The folded lip of the shell is where the mollusk is able to peak its foot out and jump itself forward. Conches grow this flared lip on their shells only upon reaching sexual maturity. The fold of the shell is usually developed after about three years of “growing”. Some species of mollusks can live up to forty years and their shells can grow to lengths of twelve inches.

From what I’ve gathered, my shell is specifically a Queen Conch shell. The Queen Conch, Strombus gigas, first appeared over sixty-five million years ago. The shell itself was used for many things such as pots, chisels, and scrapers! Conch shells have also been known to be used as weapons over a fighter’s hand. These weapons, however, would only be right-handed due to the growing direction of all Conch shells. Today, Conch shells are used for jewelry, art and decoration, occasionally as building materials, and are sold as souvenirs. Conches consume a diet of mostly plant life including sea grass which they feed upon at night when predators are less active. Most of the day a Conch spends its time buried in the sandy ocean floor. This careful behavior seems to aid the Conch shells’ growth and longevity.

This is an image of a drawing we did after speaking about the spinal column. I believe this is a 30 minute continuous contour.

I felt that I learned a lot this week during class and through the homework assignments. I am not only learning about form and drawing the complex three dimensional surfaces of the body, but I am also learning how to control my lines more. The drawings are progressing each time we begin a new class. I am excited to see what I've been learning in Life Drawing being translated into my Industrial Design work. I am doing a lot of sketching for my ID classes and I am beginning to notice that my lines are much more controlled and a bit more confident. I am also beginning to use different muscles for drawing and sketching. I am starting to notice how I am most comfortable drawing and sketching. I tried standing doing sketches and it was a much different experience although yielded good results. I look forward to the next week of drawing and am beginning to enjoy all the drawing I'm doing this semester.

Drawing Without Sight

So the blind contour drawing exercise was pretty different for me. As an Industrial Design student we are taught to be very creatively controlled in our drawings. This exercise was quite different from design sketching. I did, however, begin to more carefully feel what I was drawing. I began drawing the feet which were, in my viewing plane, farthest to the left. It was fairly intuitive to start there as I suppose I'm used to reading left to right. I tried to maintain a mental map of where I was drawing relative to what I had already drawn... this proved difficult. I do feel that the drawing was somewhat accurate in the end and I did learn how to control line a little more through the exercise. I also found that I began using cross contours to establish form. This seemed to help define the drawing in my mind (mental map of the image). Pretty interesting.