Quick Study...

This drawing was done using charcoal with the goal of capturing the depth of the still life. In this case, a plaster sculpture replaced an actual model but our technique was still rushed. The class was only assigned one hour to advance the drawing as far as possible. This sounds like plenty of time, but we had to make a good composition, rendering, and scale for a grade. I resorted to my technique of blending the charcoal with my fingers to quickly give the right shades where they were needed. This was a fun piece for me since it turned out well. Hope you like it.

Style Variation...

As figure drawing class became more advanced, my professor decided to let the students try two styles of drawing on one picture. The left side of the drawing is done using a scribbly, gestural style that I thought would contrast the developed and traditional style of the right side. I also thought that the simplified style on the left would show a sort of developmental process that leads to the finished product on the right side. In the end, I admit, it does appear lopsided, but since the figure turned out so well I had to incorporate it into a post.

...Bone Study...

Bone studies seemed endless in drawing classes but most of the time you don't have the opportunity to complete them. With this one we did have some time but with restrictions. This assignment was set up to test compositional skills which is the hardest part in drawing for me. However, the professor told us to zoom in on a particular area enough to lose the identity of the subject matter. The problem was, if I zoom in too far, there isn't enough information to draw but if I don't zoom in enough, the subject matter is easily recognizable. In this drawing I could have zoomed in more to meet the criteria of the assignment but a cow skull was an unavoidable object. The professor still liked the result and especially the fact that the scull did not appear as the center object or simply a study of a scull but of "an interesting setup of bones." So, with that I continued and developed it to this point in the same manner as the still life drawing of the box frames and studio lights, with the paper acting as the middle gray and me shading the shadows and highlights with black and white conte crayon.

The Underlying Figure...

One of the hardest things to translate to paper is wrinkled paper. Here, a plaster model of a greek statue was wrapped in thick brown paper. The objective was to distinguish the underlying figures depth. We didn't do this assignment but once so this was the result.

Hand Study...

Most of the time in Figure Drawing class we did small studies like this one to test our ability to translate a sense of depth. Here, the placement of the elements on the page was crutial so as not to make them look like they are floating or on a tilted pedestal. I thought the overall composition from my vantage point looking at this still life made for a decent composition. By the way...that seashell was brutal trying to make that look right.

...Figure Drawing...

Okay...now it gets interesting. This assignment was composed of two elements. The main element was to focus on a particular area of the figure and draw what we could within two minutes. Then, you have to flip your paper a quarter turn and pick another area of the figure to draw on top of your previous sketch where you think it fits best. Do this three or four times and that element was done. After that, we had to shade it and fill in blank spaces with various shades and blends in a way that defines an implied form of reflected light to complete the composition. This process causes some distortion and sporadic light sources but forms the results you see here. Projects like this seem so ridiculous when the teacher describes them at the beginning of class but it really pushes you to go where you normally wouldn't. So, even though it looks like a pile of body parts...I thought it turned out well compositionally if you can except it for what it is.

My Best Still Life...

Some of the smoothness and the blends in this conte crayon piece were not caught by the picture I took of it so a little information was lost but the idea is still present. This is one of my favorite drawings from college because of the way in which it was done. The paper is a dark gray which is utilized as the middle gray color while I used black conte crayon for the shadows and white for the highlights. I thought this was cool because it was the first time I've ever drawn the highlights of something. It was a little hard to think in those terms. Another reason why it is one of my favorites because I remember how hard it was to get those cube shaped frames to look right as they cast shadows across each other and how they were leaning at weird angles. It took me about two class periods to work out all the details.

How About Some Tradition...

In order to get a fine art degree in college, even for Graphic Design, you have to take a series of traditional art courses including Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture. Now, since I was a kid, I've had a pencil in my hand drawing anything I was interested in, usually jets and cars and car tank hybrid machines that I thought were cool, but as I got older, I started to want to learn how to draw people and other natural subject matter. Though not a fan of college, it did give me the time to learn. In college, I was able to produce some rather nice pieces in charcoal and pencil(graphite). In the next few posts, I will show you some of what I managed to accomplish through my Drawing I, Drawing II, and Figure Drawing classes.

St. Louis Photography

Here are some more photographs that I took while on an architectural tour through St. Louis on the right side of the page. I'll show the rest of the pictures I took then move on to showing some more of my traditional art projects. My Illustrator and Photoshop files still need to be converted to jpegs so I can post them. Hope you enjoy these in the mean time.