First semester Ringling 2013

Okay- So now school begins. Nothing bashes your self-esteem against the rocks quite like being surrounded by people who are better than you at the thing you feel is the only thing you're good at. :( Its all good though- it gives one healthy competition.

Most of the work first semester was dealing with the basic building blocks of art- composition, figure drawing, and perspective. No rendering to hide mistakes, line confidence and technique being paramount. There was little time to make a mistake, fix it, realize the fix was just another mistake, fix that and so on. I filled about 2-3 pads of newsprint, and about 2 sketchbooks; so I know i was definitely doing something. A lot of the projects were about precision and understanding. That is not my strong suit.

So I skimmed by but the skin of my teeth… guess it's lucky I only brush when the fuzz starts tickling my lips. That was a joke. I brush at least once a week.
Though I didn't produce the best work I've ever created, I learned about mistakes I was making, and ways I could get better. Roughly 6 hours 4 days a week of classes with the 5th being only 3 hours, and then literally about 5-7 hours working on projects almost everyday. Before school I was stuck, unsure of how to go about getting better; after this semester I can see where I suck; and it is everywhere. But now I can grow, and that feels better than anything.

I'm just going to go by classes for now and just upload the bigger / more in depth projects- mostly because I don't want to photograph sketchbook pages right now.

First up is perspective class. Me and perspective have never gotten along. something about straight lines just doesn't work with me. one day lines. one day I shall master you.
Here we have the inclined planes project- the last of a series of one point perspective projects. basically had to take and draw an invented "historically accurate" city going uphill.

Next is the 2 point, inventive interior project- first project where we were allowed to render, but i didn't realize until the last 15 minutes.

My First A :D. The 2 point invented vehicle project. I almost had fun with this project.

2 point RePov project. Too long to explain- sort of redraw a photo from another viewpoint. Oh... guess it wasn't that long to explain. Because of where I placed my horizon, I kind of realize this is almost 3 point. oops.

And the final. I included the thumbnail on this one- because I kind of like the thumbnail too. Regret not getting that sky a bit darker though.

Now onto the 2-d class. For a narrative artist, this class was hard to really get into a lot of the time, as it tried regularly driving in abstract concepts, which just isn't the way many of our brains have been wired to work. Still I may argue that this class may have worked more on my subconscious thought process than any other. I can't help but look at weights and compositions now. Bravo 2-d class. Bravo.

First we had to make a diptych of geometric and organic shapes, using only black and white. Honestly I still don't know what the hell I was doing.

Next a monochromatic painting. I didn't really enjoy this one. not sure why other than it was pretty monotonous.

Followed by an abstract painting of what a season feels like using complimentary colors.

Ways of creating emphasis while maintaining the same elements.

analogous color photographs. This really showed me the power of the rule of thirds. These went from photos I hated, to now photos I like looking at. Take that art.

Rhythm. HAd to have 3 elements of easily readable rhythmic designs, using a triadic color scheme. Aesthetically I found this more appealing BEFORE pushing the rhythmic elements, BUT, you must do as your client/ teacher asks :D. 

And for the final, We had to take an abstract design, and render a representational piece on top of it. Main takeaway from this project, was when working digitally, always keep your brightness on your screen at approximately half. Now I know. 

Oh man… Figure class. I love to draw the human figure, but alas it seems not to love me drawing it. All this semester I struggled to get the proportions right. I fought to simply have a character that didn't look like it was suffering from some radioactive fallout. most of the time I failed… some days were better than others- but man, when it was bad, it was pretty bad. I'm sorry to all of the models whose likenesses I completely massacred this semester. I honestly meant you no malcontent.

So every class Begins with gestures. I ind of like gestures. making things feel alive and in motion, "full of energy" is fun. basically just filling page after page of news print with 30 second drawings is almost like doodling. Hard for me to hate on that.

Then we move on to fleshing those out. Dear god why.

All of that awfulness was meant to be in preparation to do anatomy overlays. 

But If one cannot get their proportions right- laying velum paper on top and drawing anatomy, is only going to lead to anatomy as awful as your drawing was. It is a great way to see where you made your human model become mutant. There is a plus side to everything.

 For what it is worth, I lived through that, without giving up on myself only to enter into the foreshortening section of figure drawing. I think by this point I decided that there was no hope, and somehow in doing so I opened my self up to find some few successes. Not perfect but I kind of like some of them.

 Add in some cafe drawings, and then we reach the final final. when the first day of classes began we had done one 20 minute figure drawing, and then we did a final 20 minute figure drawing on the last day. I went all the way from, "dear god! what the F***ing F**k is that! all the way to, "i think that's a naked person". Good job, me. That is progress.

Honestly I owe massive amounts of credit to all of my teachers- so if you guys happen to read this; thank you Patrick Thomas Parnell, Mr. Steven Taft, and Mr. Don Brandes.