welcome & first assignment

Welcome back to you all! I am excited to work with each of you this semester and am looking forward to watching you progress with your drawing skills and understanding of artistic anatomy.

This blog (http://www.lifedrawingtwo.blogspot.com) will be our home base for the semester. Check out the Pages section (a link to each page exists right below the blog header) for the syllabus, final exam times, info on your own class blogs, etc.



Have both of these assignments completed by Saturday, September 11 by 11:00 pm.


Your first assignment for the semester is to create a D2L profile on Learn@Stout. Please include

1) a photo of yourself, and 

2) fill out the website info with your blog's url. 

3) send your blog's url to the Life Drawing II dropbox on D@L.  Do this even if I already have your url from Life Drawing I.

This will help everyone in the class know better who you are and enable us all to find each other's blogs as we need to. All the other information on the D2L profile is optional. Feel free to fill out some/all of the questionnaire about your interests or leave it blank... that part is up to you.


Your second assignment is to read over the syllabus and the blog pages--you will find these near the top of this blog.  

1) Then set up a blog on blogger.com. You can use the blog you used for Life Drawing I and simply continue it, or you can set up a new one. I would like everyone to use blogger this semester, so if you have used another blog service in the past, you can set up a new blogger account or import your former blog into blogger. I am asking this because it makes it easier for everyone to comment on blogs and for all of us to help each other with any blog issues that may come up.

2) Create your first post for Life Drawing II (about 300 words, minimum two photos). You made an introductory post in Life Drawing I, but I'm sure much has happened since then. Update us: what is your concentration? why are you taking Life Drawing II? what do you hope to learn? what are some other projects/artworks you've completed recently? what travel or internships have you done?

Then... pick up any supplies you still need and come ready for drawing on Monday, September 13. Skulls!

weekly reflections

Your ongoing assignment this semester will be to use your life drawing blog as a tool for reflection. You will be expected to post one reflection per week. This reflection should consist of at least one image and one paragraph of writing which addresses the past week of Life Drawing II, III, or IV--in class or with homework.

Reflections should be meaningful to you personally and also be appropriate for sharing with other class members and other art & design professionals.

Reflections should consist of thoughts about your progress, what you are learning, what you are struggling with, what you notice in your work or other students' work, questions you have, links to books/websites/any other information that you have found useful or interesting in relation to that week's work in Life Drawing II, III, or IV.

Feel free to post more than once a week. Once a week is the minimum requirement and expectation for Life Drawing II.

For those in Life Drawing III and IV, the expectation is to post one reflection per week plus one post on a contemporary art issue (artist, art critic, museum show, gallery, etc.).

We will take time during class each day to present these reflections/blog posts.  Each of you will be asked to do this twice during the semester. I will choose students to present each day, not in any particular order (to keep you on your toes!).

Quality and thoughtfulness of reflections and other blog posts will be reflected in your midterm and final grades, as will the quality of your presentations.

first assignment, fall 2009

1. if you do not have a life drawing blog set up yet, do so.  for those of you who do have blogs, inform me of any changes to titles, url's, etc.
2. create an introductory post: why are you taking life drawing two, what do you hope to learn this semester, what would you like to improve upon, etc. Include a few images of your other art work to give us an idea of what you do outside this course.
3. once you have your blog information ready, send an email to fichtera@uwstout.edu with your name, your blog's title, and your blog's url.
4. have supplies ready to go for next monday, sep. 14.

full skeleton assignment

due november 10 (monday):

• one front 3/4 view of the full skeleton with value on the side plane

• one back 3/4 view of the full skeleton with value on the side plane

1. use stonehenge 38" x 50" paper and tape or draw off a 2" border on all sides
2. you may use the big drawing boards in 303
3. you may use charcoal, conté, or graphite

objectives for the assignment:

• to represent the skeleton accurately in terms of anatomy and structure. this includes such things as treating the rib cage as a simple solid first, then drawing the individual ribs, and making sure that we can understand in the drawing how the ribs articulate with the spinal column. it means making sure all joints are believable, diagrammatic. make sure the bones are drawn as characteristically as possible: does the femur look like the longest bone in the body? does the humerus have a twist? is the fibula lower than the tibia? does the scapula occupy ribs 2 - 7? etc. all parts of the drawing should be as three-dimensional as possible, through adding and/or exaggerating edge planes.

• to create a structurally clear and anatomically accurate drawing that also emphasizes line variation. use line to 1) to create a sense of three-dimensionality within each form itself, and 2) create atmospheric perspective in the drawing (most contrast and detail in foreground, less contrast and detail in background). you will utilize edges/outlines for sure, but all outlines should be varied--if one edge of a bone is dark, the other should be light. edges on the light planes are best if they have some openness (let the open/gapped lines imply the edge).

• to use linear value. you will add a darker value to one plane in the drawing. you will choose a light source (typically above and to one side, like the sun at 10 am or 2 pm, for example). the plane away from the light source will be your darker plane, or your "side" plane. this works best when this plane is also the smaller of the two planes (larger front plane, narrower side plane, for example). this is so the drawing does not get overwhelmed with too much value. feel free to keep the value subtle. a little value can go a long way to adding to the illusion you've set up through line. too dark or textured of a value can have the opposite effect--so go easy.

• to incorporate your own drawing "handwriting." work on refining your own way of putting down marks, erasing, and laying down value. rely on your strengths and your natural tendencies to your advantage. try to find what makes sense to you as a draftsperson as you work with value and marks. each of you have your own way of creating a drawing. take the best of what you work with naturally and incorporate the ideas of line variation and linear value within your own style or handwriting.

• to use the principals of design to create a successful figure/ground relationship on the picture plane. we talked about the extra width of the page in relation to the height of the skeleton, and to make use of that extra space by incorporating close-up drawings of joints, vertebrae, the skull, etc. you could even add notes in this space as long as they add to the overall aesthetic of the drawing rather than distract from it. when you are trying to figure out what makes a good use of the page, think of the principals of design you learned as freshmen: balance, repetition, contrast, harmony, dominance, unity.

• to be conscious of your drawing process through the entire process of this assignment. for each drawing session you work on the skeleton, photograph your drawing (at least one with the skeleton in view) and write about the drawing process--what you accomplished, what you figured out, what problems you came across, what you plan to work on first next time, what you will need to do before you come back to the drawing, etc. create a blog post with this information for each of your drawing sessions as you work on this assignment.

• to help your blog group members through this assignment. each day from now until the assignment due date check your group members' blogs to see if they have posted about their skeleton assignment. if so, look at their images, read their summaries of their drawing processes, and comment thoughtfully and meaningfully to help them create the best skeleton drawings they can at this point in their education/artistic career. do this through noticing and asking questions first, then through advice-giving if the artist asks for it.
  

responding

assignment for tuesday, before class: read your group members blog posts and respond to each of the other members in your group by leaving a comment on their blogs.


here are a few ideas as you respond to your group members' blog posts:

• look at their work and read their writing carefully, taking time
• as you begin to respond, write what you notice about the images/text, what sticks out in your mind, what you appreciate, what you've learned
• avoid giving advice
• instead of giving advice, ask questions: what do you still wonder about after looking at their post? what would you like to know more about?
  
• while you are responding, think about how you would like to have your images seen and your writing read. what would you want people to ask you about? or notice about your work? what questions would you like them to ask? then use those thoughts to guide your response to others.
• as i have mentioned a few times, these blogs are yours. individually, and in small groups, and for the larger class. take ownership of this space by being an active, supportive, questioning, thoughtful responder in your small group.

assignment

life drawing two students:

your assignment:

create a blog post in which you present yourself to me, the other life drawing students, other art majors and faculty, and even outside art & design professionals who may now or in the future see your blog. present yourself as the artist you are now, at the beginning of the fall semseter 2008.

start by introducing yourself (remembering this is a professional space). where are you from? what concentration/year are you at stout? how did you choose your concentration? where do you hope to go after stout? what does your ideal life as an artist/designer look like?

include at least three images. ideally, these images will be of your best artwork or designs you have produced as a student at stout. if you do not have access to those artworks, present the best that you have.

write at least one paragraph for each image: describe your process of creating it, what problem you were trying to solve, what course it was for, what you trying to achieve, why you think it is a successful work, etc. you do not have to follow these questions exactly. they are examples of questions to ask yourself as you write about your work.

basically, show and tell us who you are as an artist through texts and images. begin your story of this semester in life drawing.

today during class, i will assign small groups so you will each have three (+/- depending on the class numbers) students to respond to over the weekend.