I'm going to fail this class. She promised me I wouldn't fail this class if I just tried everything. It was okay now that I think back on it. It was terrifying at the time. At the beginning, she made sure we all understood that a lot of us were NOT art majors and that she knew this. She knew we would never be artists and never wanted to be artists, but we have to take the class anyway. Mostly what she wants us to take away from the class at the end of the semester is how to look at things differently. How to go from using our "logical" mode that says, "This is an ear. Draw an ear. OMG my drawing doesn't look like an ear." to our artistic mode that tells us, "This is a line and this is a shape and it intersects with this shadow."
So after all that reassurance, I still think I'm going to fail, although my drawing of the piece of paper I crumpled up got considerably better after she stopped by to help me and give me some hints. I can't draw stick figures and this class really has me worried.
After I get some pictures of the stuff I did so you can laugh at it, I'll finish my blog for today. We drew a picture that was upside down so it was hard to tell what it was. That was supposed to keep our "logical" mode from kicking in and telling us what it was supposed to look like. Mine turned out okay but she looks like she's been in a car accident and has very short midget arms and one huge gargantuan thigh. Oh well. First attempt.
Next, we were instructed to crumple up a piece of paper and uncrumple it. Okay, now draw it. Pay attention to the lines and the shadows and shapes. Mine started out awful but the second half got better after she gave me some hints on how to use my pencil to shade better that "coloring in". :) *Oops* Well wtf do I know about art.
We got to trace next. Yay! Sort of yay. We traced the basic contour of a hand, then we were to shade it in by looking at the picture. Mine actually turned out okay. For me. It wasn't like some other peoples', but for me I was impressed. Drawing the contour of my own hand was a different story. She finally took pity on me and "helped" me by guiding my hand around my paper. She said I was starting to look like my eyes were going to fall out. She was right.
The last thing we did was talk about negative space where we looked at a piece of paper with a chair drawn on it, then we drew the white parts and not the chair. That actually stopped my "logical" mode from telling me it was a chair. Instead, I sat there going, "That is the ugliest triangle I've ever seen in my life."
The one thing that really stuck in my head from my first class in drawing is.... Did you know your eye is the same width as your nose is long? I had to go home and try it and she was right. It really is. Huh!
Photography came next after lunch and it was much less exasperating. We talked about shutter, aperture and film speed. Wide angles and zooms. Oh, if you're looking for a free Photo Editor, he gave us a good one. It's called The Gimp (General Image Manipulation Program) and you can get it at: http://www.photonhead.com/photo-editing/thegimp.php
Anyway, back to it. We talked about the differences between good pictures and great pictures, what our eyes go to first when looking at a picture and why, how we can get rid of clutter that takes away from the picture, and why we should consider using people in our pictures (yuck). We talked about color, layout, creating depth, good dramatic lighting and bad dramatic lighting, shot preparation, and what times of day present what types of light and what each type of light is best for. Right before the end of class, we started talking about different subjects to shoot and how to take the best pictures of each of them.
Our first assignment is to find several pictures we like, and describe why it is we like them.
Keep checking back because I'm going to take some pictures of my really scary drawings so you can laugh at them with me. And trust me, I'm laughing.
*mwah*
<3
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