life’s not a paragraph

so the administrators who i work for at the new england school of art and design had this great idea that i should give a little summary about each class that i have taken this semester so you can get an better idea of what they are like. which is really great because i realize now that i haven’t really talked in much detail about any of my classes! i think i am going to start with drawing one since it was the first class i had every week. 9:30-12:10 every monday and wednesday.

obviously, drawing one is a basic drawing class, which focuses on developing a student’s drawing skills. at first, i was a little hesitant to take the class because i had done a lot of drawing in high school so i thought drawing one would be a boring review of everything i already know… well, i was wrong. haha i think it’s a really good that i took the class because not only was i able to refresh and build upon the skills i already have, i was able to explore a bit more and learn some new techniques that i had never been taught.

the class centers around contour line, measuring and proportions. drawing accurately takes practice– lots of it. and unfortunately, i wasn’t taught to focus on accuracy during my drawing classes in high school. it was just kind of assumed that we would draw in proportion all the time; sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. drawing one really forces your to measure and compare all the objects you’re drawing so that you get the proportions right.

i’ve noticed a huge difference in the way i draw and the way i go about drawing in this class. as a result, i think my drawing skills have improved significantly. now that i know my drawing process has changed, it will change the way i go about creating pieces in other classes.

the last few weeks of the course, we started addressing how to draw form. we transitioned from the single contour line to using these lines to create the illusion of three-dimensionality. then we moved on to value (lights and shadows) to create this effect. since i am partial to shading, i was practically jumping out of my seat when we finally got to use charcoal. charcoal is my favorite medium to use. i absolutely love it, despite the mess it makes. 🙂

my professor taught me a new charcoal technique as well. using vine charcoal (which i had never used before), you cover the entire page with a medium value gray. then to find the lights, you erase, and to find the darks, you add more charcoal. and you keep building it up until you get an accurate image. it’s a really distinct way of creating highlights and shadows. our final drawing homework was to draw three value drawings in three different light settings. we could choose from a variety of techniques to use, but i chose the erase-away method. since i love the technique so much, i looked forward to doing the homework every night!

our last class we did a figure value study, and my professor decided to give us the option of charcoal or sumi ink. since i had been using charcoal for the past two weeks, i decided to be adventurous and try out the ink! ink makes me nervous because you can’t erase and ink can kind of have a mind of its own, so i was determined to control it. haha i really actually enjoyed the process. it’s kind of methodical– water, ink, blend, water, ink, blend… i was very pleased with the result. i found a new medium to work with! yay for new discoveries! haha

for our final, we had to pass in a portfolio of all of our classwork and homework since the midterm. we are going to get them back next week. over all, i really enjoyed the class, and i think i did really well in the course, so let’s keep our fingers crossed!! 🙂