November.

Just finished working more on the Reaper's arm. Probably going to touch up the lower portion of the coat now.

Grim reaper

It's the second week of my grim reaper project. Its looking good, although I think his face may be drawn too skinny. I'm probably going to redo that in class today.

October Critique

The first leaves I’m critiquing are probably the only set in the class that got a good grade. But that’s because Julie’s leaves and her progress though the project was pretty amazing. The first quarter of leaves were good, they were proportioned well, pop out at you a fair amount, and the veins of the leaves are super intricate. In the second quarter she finally figured out how darks, lights, and their contrast between them makes leaves not only look realistic, but also even make you feel like you can pick them off the paper. Although the details were a little blurry in the second quarter, they nicely became clearer in the remaining two quarters. Now, what I would recommend doing next time is planning out how the leaves are going to come together at the end. Because the two bottom sections come together in an odd way that flaws how perfect the rest of the leaves are. Measuring where the leaves meet the line and marking that point off would probably help a lot.
The other leaves (or in this case sticks) that I’m going to comment on are Todd’s. The leaves are pretty good coming from someone missing the first two weeks of class but he definitely missed some important exercises that would have helped him in this project, such as drawing the bone. The sticks to the bottom right of the picture are particularly realistic. The knot in the stick is done really well and so are the lines leading towards it. Also all his sticks seem to match up, which is really difficult to pull off. What his drawing could use is some more detail, especially in the top left section (I don’t know if he was still working on it or if it was his first one, but the insides don’t have any detail at all). If you follow the stick on the very left all the way down there is a weird part of the stick that I don’t really have a clue looks like in reality. Also there is a stick that has a section that is way to dark, which would be ok if there was a pattern behind the darkness, but it just looks like its colored in. Also the stick that touches the bottom left looks like nothing that I have ever seen before? Is that even a stick?
I feel like my leaves look pretty good, proportionally and in terms of contrast, when you looked at it from far away... But if you were ever to get a real close look at them you would see that many sections of the leave's details are inconsistent. I think this was partly due to me picking the drawing up and continuing it many different times of the week. I probably had a different perspective and mindset each time I looked at the leaves, which really effected how it comes together in the big picture. Lighting is also an issue when we are expected to outline the inner shadows of the leaves. A way I could have avoided this could be to work in the same place each time I draw. Now that I think about it, I didn’t even sit in the same place in the drawing studio during class. Other than that I probably should have taken more time with the leaf that goes though all quarters in the middle of the picture. Those curvy lines gave me a headache and I generalized on some of them.

Finishing leaves

I worked for a good four hours on the last section of my leaves. All that's left to do is some touching up.

Final Quarter

Today we started to draw the final quarter of our leaves in class. I think this time around I've got the proportioning and outer lines right. All that's left is to do the inside details, including outlining and breaking down the inner shadows of each leaf.

4 Minutes and 33 Seconds

John Cage's Four Minutes and Thirty Three seconds was definitely different from anything I've ever seen before. I know during the four minutes and thirty three seconds we were supposed to be taking in the ambient noises that we don't usually hear without something to point them out. I did realize this the second time I watched it, I heard planes and people playing Frisbee outside. But the first time we watched it I was thinking too much about what he was doing. As everyone else probably did, the first thirty seconds of the song I assumed he was actually going to play, but was an old guy so it took him longer to get ready. When I realized he wasn't going to play I started thinking about what he is going to do if he does anything at all. By minute two it was clear that he wasn't going to play anything but I could not stop thinking about the other possibilities. Maybe this piece not only makes people realize the noise that just happens to be there, but also the fact that some of us can be a little over anxious be on top of things.

Impressions of School

The first few weeks of school, especially the weekends have been going by very fast. All I feel like I do over the weekend is homework, and I feel like all I do during the week is homework and class. So College is a lot more work than high school for sure. The classes are a lot more interesting though, which I think in the long run will help me stick through it. Being used to having to do the core classes in high school, taking whatever I want is a breath of fresh air. I like being busy also, because I'm used to being bored and needed a break from that. Other than that, The food is OK (though I'm running out of food rapidly for it), my room is getting messy already, and I feel stuck on campus. I also watch a lot more TV here than at home (when I actually finish my homework).