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Day 30
Today I mostly listened to lectures, since time was limited. In my Color Theory class, the instructor went over the idea of Notan, which I had never heard of before. I then looked up “Notan” – a Japanese term for light and dark harmony. Pretty cool. When I was in school, our first painting was black and white, but, at the time, I didn’t have a firm grasp on why we were doing that. It all makes more sense now.
I also got about 35 minutes of gesture drawing in. These are 5 minute, and a 10-minute pose.
Day 29
Today was a glorious day filled with nothing but art. I’m learning a lot from Steve Huston’s Constructive Drawing class. He’s filling in a lot of gaps and missing information for me, which is so great. I also watched a few YouTube videos on how to give a critique. I would like to start being more proactive about giving feedback, rather than just “hearting” everything. I also wrote on my “white board” (actually a piece of large drawing paper on the wall) my art education plan. Today I warmed up with gestures, then finished my eye and lips cast drawings.
Day 28
Today I listened to Steve Huston’s Constructive Drawing class. I’m almost caught up to where I left off (in topic) in Glenn’s Dynamic Gesture Drawing class – shading. Once I get there in Steve’s class, which is soon, I’ll rotate between all my classes. I’m also taking the Russian Drawing class and Color Theory. So I’m really liking the education I’m getting here. Today I worked on the eye cast for the Russian drawing class.
Day 27
Today I got up an hour earlier so that I’d have more time to work on my art. I finished my contest drawing by mounting it on board and naming it. I’ll turn it in tonight or tomorrow. I warmed up with gesture, then started my drawing of the cast eye. I decided to use the 3D cast image instead of the reference photo, just for fun. I didn’t/don’t really feel like drawing the body parts, so getting to play with the 3D image – spinning it around, etc. – made it more fun!
Day 26
I am finally done with my skull contest drawing. The only thing I need to do now is mount it on display board, seal it, add the text watermark per the contest instructions, and turn it in. Whew! I’ve never entered an art contest before. The best thing about it was the fun of taking the contest premise and putting my own spin on it. Also, working towards a goal and a deadline was really fun.
Now, I need to go back to Ilya’s class, since I fell behind on his assignments. I need to do both the eye and the lips cast projects. Today, I warmed up with 1-minute gestures, then did Steve Huston’s assignment in Constructive Drawing, which was five 5-minute poses. I was a little disappointed that, when it was his turn, he didn’t actually use the 5 minutes to do the drawing, like Glen always does. He just did some of it and lectured. But I’m really happy to be taking both of these masters’ classes. Hearing the same topic, but in each of their different styles, is really helpful!
Day 25
Woo hoo! A quarter of the way through the challenge. I’m finally finished with my contest drawing. I will likely tweak it a little bit between now and the deadline, but the major work is done. I continue to do 1 and 2-minute gestures as a warm-up.
Day 24
I’m reading Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wasssily Kandinsky, and really loving it. This is my philosophy, but I didn’t realize someone had already articulated this idea in a book. I’ve heard Steve Huston touch on this idea, but that’s it. I’m excited!
If the emotional power of the artist can overwhelm the “how?” and can give free scope to his finer feelings, then art is on the crest of the road by which she will not fail later on to find the “what” she has lost, the “what” which will show the way to the spiritual food of the newly awakened spiritual life. This “what?” will no longer be the material, objective “what” of the former period, but the internal truth of art, the soul without which the body (i.e. the “how”) can never be healthy, whether in an individual or in a whole people. – p. 20
Today I worked on gesture and am fine-tuning my contest drawing. I plan to be finished by tomorrow.
I’m closing in on my contest drawing. It’ll be nice to be done. I enjoyed it. But I think I’ve had enough of skulls for the immediate future!
Day 22
I love the weekend! It’s so nice to be able to do my art with little thought of time, or needing to get anywhere. I usually do my art before work, so there is always the pressure of having to stop. I can tell I’m really starting to learn because the conversation in my head while I’m drawing is changing. Today, as I was drawing teeth, I asked myself “what is the GESTURE of the teeth?” Wow. I never would have said that before! Today I worked on gesture and my contest drawing.
Day 21
Today, with gesture, I focused on slowing down and committing more with my strokes, instead of putting down wavy chicken-scratch. I’m happier with these results. And I’m getting closer to finishing my skull drawings. The end result is supposed to be a Warhol-like drawing with colored backgrounds. I have to experiment, though. I don’t want the colored pencil background to take away from the drawing itself. So, that’s still in the air.
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