Fall Quarter 2012: Life Drawing & Gesture

This was one of my favorite classes, actually all of the traditional art drawing classes have been great.  We had studio time each week where we did 4 hours of figure drawing.  This course centered around rendering the figure in charcoal sticks on paper (no pencils).  I have to admit it was a challenge as charcoal sticks/blocks don't offer the same control as a pencil, but with that in mind it was fun to get my hands dirty and work on paper again, and see how accurate I could be without the use of a pencil.  All artwork is charcoal (vine and compressed) on 18x24 drawing paper.  Building on that we had special projects throughout the quarter:

 Project 1:  Self Portrait

For this project we had to render a self-portrait where you present yourself in another setting, time etc.  I did this one based off of a photo still from the TV series A Game of Thrones.

 Project 2:  Chiaroscuro Painting or Sculpture  Reproduction

For this project we could choose to reproduce a Chiaroscuro painting or a rendering of a famous Greek/Roman statue.  I chose to render a statue of Hercules from the Met in NYC.

 Project 3:  Fairytale/Nursery Rhyme/Fantasy Book Cover

For this project we had to create a rendition of a book cover based on a Fairytale or Nursery Rhyme.  I chose Tom Thumb.  There are many renditions of the story, but the one I chose is where he battles a spider.  So I played with that and playing on Tom's size used a spool of thread as a seat and a needle for his sword.

Project 4:  5 figures in motion

For this piece, we had to work on a motion sequence showing a figure at five different stages of the same motion.  For this I used the  early sequential photography of Eadweard James Muybridge as inspriation and put the figure of a man throwing a punch against a Frank Frazetta inspired backdrop.