On monday of this last week, we had our critiques of the human face drawings. I was apparently the most interesting model for my classmates to draw, since Amy thought their drawings of me were their most successful ones. The position I sat in was pretty dang interesting. I obviously had a different situation since I couldn't draw myself. The drawings that were shown on Mon. are the same as the ones from my last 3 blog posts, featuring Dan, Brandon, and Jordan. Apparently my drawing of Brandon was the most interesting due to the emotion of the face, whether accidental or intentional, I can't really remember. I personally felt like my drawing of Jordan was the best one because I managed to infuse it with my own personal style and technique, while still having it (in my opinion) look completely like him. Features are exaggerated and celebrated moreso than life, but I felt like that made it more interesting and three dimensional. Several process marks and draft lines were left in the drawing to suggest the form more fully. Also, the angle of which I draw Jordan's face seems to express a lot more to me, especially in the shape and curvature shown in the neck/shoulder muscles.

The drawing above is of another project for my painting independent study. I felt like I posted this already but I guess I hadn't. I wanted to show a town that is torn between utopia and ruin. It was a Haven for those escaping from the ravages of the world portrayed, which was nearing an end. It was a really fun opportunity to get to play with vibrant colors the wouldn't normally be seen in the natural world, but it was also a challenge. Using such a palette also invokes the imagery of bright and flashy cartoons so I had to spend extra time trying to pay attention to aspects of realism. While not completely successful in this front, it was a learning experience and I definitely want to play around with it again.

This is Jordan. I drew him. We're doing in class critiques tomorrow. I really honestly have no idea what to blog about at the moment. Just been a busy week.

Week 2 of faces. The model on Monday was Brandon, and despite my drawing, he was not angry in any way. One of the biggest struggles was my tendency to elongate all the features and the face as a whole. I think this comes from growing up drawing cartoon and anime characters who have thin heads with smaller, nondescript features. It was good to put in a skull sketch under the drawing though, it gave some good perspective lines to curve the face around. I think the angry look in the drawing comes from how many times I erased and redrew the eyes: the more I drew, the harder it became to make the marks subtle.

Wednesday I was the face model, and I got propped up on a chair that was on 2 stools that was on a model stand...and I fell asleep half the time. Sorry for that guys.

I also finished my scenery painting for my other class. Originally I was going to add some sort of fantasy elements like a dinosaur turtle in the water or floating energy crystals, but I decided to focus on the process and getting texture and color to pop. I think it was inspired a little bit by cliff diving in Hawaii, though it's probably a little more idealized in my head than in actuality.