You know it's going to be a crazy day when all you want to do is pull the covers over your head when the alarm sounds in the morning. I experienced my first classes with Paul and Frank today - drawing in the morning and design in the afternoon.
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| Some of the faster figure drawing sketches |
Naturally anxious about tardiness and violating the strict attendance policy, I arrived to class very early and saw that we were to have a male model for our figure drawing class. I really enjoyed the nude figure drawing, because it's not something that I get to do often. I have done it twice, both times in the art studio where I take classes, but it is a special course that is a "treat". Of course, figure drawing isn't offered at all in my high school, so my experience was limited and I was anxious about how my drawings would turn out. Paul surprised me by announcing that instead of doing long and detailed pieces, we would focus on very short, quick sketches. Every thirty minutes, the model changed positions, so we had to work quickly and draw only a very general image. As the first session came to a close, we finished with longer, 10 minute drawings, but even then, it wasn't enough for me to finish. However, the sketches were really helpful to me, as I was able to practice measuring, drawing negatives spaces, and triangulating in order to find the locations of points in space.
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| One of the ten minute long sketches |
Paul emphasized that our most important tool is not one that we can buy at Ultrecht - it's our vision. It's so important for us to really look at what we're trying to depict, and not rely on a prototype image that is stored in our minds. To emphasize this point, we spent some time doing blind contour line drawings. We were not allowed to look at our drawings as we went, and attempted to move our charcoal along the paper in sync with our eyes in order to create an outline of the model. These didn't turn out very pretty, and I got a little fidgety because I couldn't see my work, but blind contour line drawing made realize how many details can be missed when not focusing enough of my attention on the model. It was a really focused and intense morning.
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| Carrots from this perspective have a really interesting texture |
In the afternoon, my partners and I worked with Frank to brainstorm for our garment. He sent us back to the location that we chose yesterday to get texture and shape samples. The Union Square farmers market doesn't open on Tuesdays, so Gabby, Sami, and I ran into Whole Foods to draw and take pictures of the produce. After we returned to class, we created mental maps of everything we could think of that related to our initial inspiration (vegetables). Veggies make you think of health, health makes you think of organic, organic makes you think of local, and local makes you think of community (and so forth). He challenged us to not focus so much on the final product and what we wanted to look like, and free-think. The goal was to explore as many directions, images, and ideas as possible in order to have many choices when it came time to actually design and contruct the project.
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| My afternoon design class with Frank |
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| My 6/2/13 still life homework (charcoal on newsprint) |
Lastly, homework was assigned. We are to draw one still life containing a soft object, a hard object, a transparent object, and an organic object (in charcoal) and one drawing of our non-dominant hand in graphite (for Paul) and to complete fashion sketch ideas and a mood board (for Frank). I just finished, and I am so tired. It's been a really long day, and we have 17 more working days to go. I feel like I have been at Parsons for so long, and have begun to refer to my dorm as "home". Summer Intensive Studies is no joke. (but i love it)
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