The last post- a backwards glance

Well, this technically isn't a back post blog, but since it probably should have been typed last night... it still is. So, this week... yeah... Kinda missed Tuesday's class because to say stress had made me mentally unstable would be an understatement. I figured I was doing myself and the class a favor by not showing up. Instead I sat on my futon for six hours, staring at a blank wall and crying... Talk about a mental break down, jeepers. For the record- that is extremely unlike me. So anyway. Since I don't have much to speak of about class this week I shall discuss how this semester went as a whole. :)

H'okay, so.. heres de earf- okay maybe not.. But the semester was.. interesting. I believe I am completely out of practice of drawing, I think this was a decent warm up to get me into the swing of drawing. It only took all semester, no big. lol Now I just have to trek through second semester of drawing and painting. I really hope I'm ready for that. Im so relieved we no longer have to do the self portrait for the final. That would just have been way to much on my plate, as is I've been struggling just to keep my head above water with being in the hospital and having to play catch-up. This class may be the worst though. I'm going to get everything done though. I will not allow myself to not finish. I have to find a place in my apartment to do my last shell drawing... The snow prevents my south campus trek... Not exactly certain how well this is going to work out for me. The shell drawings are nothing in comparison to building Lyle's muscles. I tried to convince him to pump some iron but he just stood there and stared at me... Guess I have to do all the work... Silly inanimate object... alrighty, well. That was my semester, I got into the habit of giving inanimate objects, besides my car a name, personality and I've even begun expecting them to accomplish this they are not capable of... thank you, Life Drawing 1 for making me go insane. I usually end with, Until next time.... But I don't know that there will be a next time. So have a good one. :) It was nice rambling to you.

the link to my flikr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kirsten-iehl/

Dec 6th- 12

This be back track blog post number... three... me thinks. Possibly.. This week I believe is the week we critiqued the third shell drawing- which I didn't have because it was hard enough staying awake, seeing straight and moving with out pain all weekend. I couldn't exactly do my shell drawing. I looked at a bunch of other peoples shells and noticed how they utilized the page and how they mastered the ink and I gathered information about what I needed to do for mine. I think we may have also drawn hands that day, I'm not sure. The weeks run together. Same room. Same people. Anyway, if that was the day were drew hands then that was also the day where I noticed how I don't pay much attention to the different planes. I had a lot of difficulty with drawing hands, couldn't seem to focus my brain on drawing I was more interested in the coffee i was drinking, which, in hindsight is quite sad because it really wasn't that interesting. I think I drew about three hands and gave up. Liz did a pretty good job tho. until her hands resembled my boot, which I guess was more interesting to her than my hands. I don't blame her. Usually I thoroughly enjoy drawing hands. I think they may be the most interesting body part, they are capable of so much and are able to move in so many different ways. Hands are extremely complex and exciting. If only I had been able to focus... I was excessively excited to be able to draw hands when it was announced we were going to be, but afterward I don't know that I would be so willing to draw them again. Or maybe next time I will just focus my attention more on the subject and less on my drinkable substance. Well. Until next time...

week of dec 1st

The first day back after break I realized that I forgot to bring Lyle back to school with me, so when we got time to work on our manikens during Tuesdays class I left and went to work on homework from another class. But I didn't end up going to class on Thursday because Wednesday the first I spent sixteen hours writhing and crying in pain- ten of which were spent in the Menomonie emergency room. I got home at 3:00 in the morning and spent the entire day on Vicodin and sleeping... So I wasn't able to walk to class. I spent the rest of the weekend in pain and on Vicodin. what a waste of a weekend. So then the next week I wasn't able to finish my shell drawing but that story is reserved for the next post. Basically this week I didn't accomplish anything... I was a vegetable. And my vegetable-like quality is seriously making it difficult for me to continue with this post... so I think instead of randomly rambling just to get enough words, I think I will just leave it at that. Until next time...

nov 1-6

I'm not exactly certain what we did this week, as this is a back post but I'm sure we drew, and drew some more.. and probably did some work with the manikens and drew some more. All of these blogs seem to be running together. So I think I'm going to switch up the subject matter slightly, and discuss things related to drawing and my major that I did outside of class that week. The week I'm speaking of I sketched out a three panel painting I will be finishing over break. I also painted a winter scene on a panel for a gift for one of my friends. I am a painting major and it seems to me the most I will be using my drawing skills will be for sketching out paintings. which is fine by me. I used to draw well but as the years have progressed my skills have diminished. One of my drawing professors from my freshman year explained that drawing is like singing, if you don't nurture your talent you lose it. Which is very true. I suppose if I wanted to I could get it back but this has been an excessively trying semester and pushing myself more than outside influences did would probably have made me implode. Its hard to draw in this class without being able to shade. I'm so used to being able to quickly sketch and then go back over whatever I draw with shading and I can make what I drew look infinitely better. Maybe thats the reasoning behind my pessimism related to my drawing skills this semester. possibly, me thinks. well... I'm not exactly sure what to say on the subject, so... until next time...

nov 14-23

Back track blog post number two. I don’t quite remember what we did, this one may have been the trip to the museums. I got out of my 2D digital imaging class early, which was a waste to go to anyway- I was only in class for 15 minutes. Then sat in the stairwell by the doors waiting for the bus to show up… when we decided it probably wasn’t going to be there the bus garage was contacted and we were allowed an ho I don’t remember much about the walker. Nothing was really that interesting to me. The photography was about the only thing that caught my attention. Everything else just seemed to blur together- aside from the people that were painted and laying on the floor… that was just… weird. I thoroughly enjoyed the wall of the 38 theaters and a funeral home. I love old theaters anyway, the history behind them, the beauty of the way they were designed even the whiff of nostalgia they greet me with. I think I stood in front of those for a half hour. Each pass I made I saw things I didn’t see the time before. The little details that makes each of those places look loved, or abandoned; The things that draw me in; what I can relate to. The next museum we went to was the natural history museum. While we were there Liz and I trekked through all of the rooms and looked through the glass but couldn’t find much that sparked our interest… until we got to the children’s touch and learn center. Then we couldn’t decide what we wanted to draw. I settled on the grizzly bear in the center of the room. It was a little difficult trying to draw the bear’s head though, as kids and adults kept stopping in front of it. Kids were even hanging on his jaw… I did finally get the bear’s head drawn… and I was reminded how difficult fur was to draw. I think next time I will just draw tree stumps. Haha. Until next time…

nov. 7-13

I missed a few blog posts… so here is back track post number one. Looks like the last post was from midterm- so we shall pickup where I left off. That is, if I can remember what we did in class. They all kind of run together after a while. I know we did shell drawings, we started drawing more specific parts on the models. This may or may not have been the week that I have no good long poses to speak of due to sitting models syndrome- which is code for “something Kirsten is incapable of drawing the profile of when there is a chair blocking half of the anatomy she needs to see for landmarks.” As you can guess folks, its not a very pretty picture. And then trying to fit the entire model on the page… over five feet of model on a two foot paper… yeah… kind of difficult. I resorted back to my old ways and drew excessively small, sketchy, dark and altogether, crappy. Needless to say this is not one of my strongest drawings. In fact both drawings are ones that I would like to burn, tear in half, or use to mop up the ink that I will be using on the last shell drawing I have yet to finish. Up to this point I would like to point out that I, in fact had been getting better about using my full arm and using the whole page. But well I guess digression is a natural problem that can be fixed with baby steps. One step forward, two steps back. O well.

This Semester at a glance

This semester we learned about the long axis line, the spine, the spinal erectors, and abs. We also learned about drawing the rib cage in relation to the spine and proportions of the rest of the body. Through out the semester I've been relearning how to draw. It's been a lot more difficult than I had originally anticipated that it would. I can see the improvement in the long drawings. It is not so much the case with the gesture drawings though. Those seem to be a hit or miss. They kind of depend on the day. It was really difficult to pick out gesture drawings for my flickr account because I couldn't remember which ones I was told were really good. They all kind of run together and when we have umpteen days and a two drawing pads to flip through. Many days I can take the details I see and organize them correctly into what it should look like in my drawing. I've been working on drawing bigger and slower. Some days it works, others I just don't have the patience. The last two long poses I haven't been able to draw correctly. But they have also been the poses where the models have sat in chairs and the chair has prevented my ability to see the entire long axis line and other body landmarks. It also made it awkward for figuring out sizing and how to fit it all on the page.



 My Url for my flickr account is-


http://www.flickr.com/photos/kirsten-iehl/

 I'm having issues with uploading pictures to my blogs so... I can't really do anything with pictures at the point...  Until next time...

Oct 24-30th

      This week we drew our first male model. That was an interesting change of scenery... Actually I found it slightly awkward and I couldn't seem to get the proportions or even the basic anatomy correct. Maybe it was just on off day for me. I still have yet to have a day where I can actually draw. Guess this just isn't my semester. We also went over our shell drawings with critiques in the hall with people who weren't in our original groups- in my case at least. It was nice to get a new opinion of my shell and what I can work on. originally I was told that my lines had good differentiation, had a nice axis line, was a little small for the paper- which I explained during the second critique that I had originally plotted it out to fill the page and when I got to the individual parts of it my drawing apparently got smaller.
     I'm not really looking for this week... Between mid-program review and the billion things I have to do for this class and all my other classes I have almost no time to get anything done. So if I'm super tired for this class and have to force feed myself coffee before and during class... I blame life drawing. Maybe. Or possibly MPR, or voting, or any of my other classes. I will have to post the pictures of my works up soon and comment on everyone's blogs... I know I have yet to do that but only because when I  do this blog I never think about it. I will have to go through them all during the week when I have more time.

a week without class...

So, this week in class... oh wait... We didn't have class. well, it was a nice break, but I felt like there was a void in my schedule.. which of course there was. I kinda wish we had class so I could have solidified the project guidelines. I found the assignment online right after she assigned it but haven't since. I'm not exactly certain where I found it the first time.
     Its getting a little boring writing about just what we do in class every week but I can never think of anything else to write, nor am I sure that writing about anything else is acceptable. I really don't know what to write now... Since we didn't do anything and I haven't been in class for the past week and a half.
so... until next time...

Oct3rd-Oct-12th

This week in class on Tuesday we drew the model again. We did more short poses and I worked more on my posture and my drawing form. Im improving but only in small increments. We spent an hour talking about the abdominal muscles and taking notes.  I ran out of paper on Tuesday and had to buy more before the class on Thursday... Which I didn't make it too because I randomly got sick and was unable to even stand up. So Lyle stared at me from across the room while I sat on my futon and tried to gather the energy to walk to class. I think his face drooped a little when I ended up emailing the professor that I honestly couldnt stand. When I did finally stand I felt like I did after I had taken Vicodin after my surgery freshman year. I contemplated driving down but decided against that for the sake of everyone else. I don't know what else I can say, aside from Im kind of excited to start this project but a little leery because contour lines and I just don't see eye to eye. also because I have a tendency to get fed up with projects after a while and just give up. So I guess I will just have to buckle down and continue with this one. It would be very unfortunate to end this semester with no works that I want to claim. Until next time...

Sept 26th-Oct 2nd

In class on Tuesday we looked at our mannequins and I found out that Lyle has some major issues with his muscles that must be repaired pronto, before his other muscles are equally screwy... talk about issues. then we proceeded with the class with drawing the models. I finally used the full page for the long drawing... It was nice to not be scolded to draw larger. we drew with our left hands that day. I might actually start drawing with my left hand more often. I had a goal to each myself to be ambidextrous by the time I graduate. Maybe this would be a good place to start. by drawing with my left hand I was forced to draw with my shoulder because that is the only way I could gain control of my drawing tool which was a weird sensation. On Thursday we took notes on the second section of muscles and then drew the model again. nothing special or different that day than any other. We worked on the rib cage and figuring out the direction the models rib cage was going and putting the long axis line and the rib cage together.  I would have to say the most exciting part of the day was the epic fail Liz and I encountered when we went to pawn... What should have been a ten minute break turned into twenty minutes of the pawn workers trying to figure out why the machine for the cappuccino and hot chocolate wasn't working. Not wanting to return to class late, and with nothing to show for our little "adventure", we settled on juice. Epic fail. Hopefully next time we will not have as many issues. Im pretty sure we are drawing our shells this week. I'm kind of excited for that. It will be nice to be able to go back to still life type objects, a refreshing break from the living I suppose. Until next time, have a wonderful day. :)

Week 3. Sept 19th-25th

Tuesday this week we drew a different female model. This time we did several short poses and a couple long poses. I prefer the short poses. They have more energy and are much more interesting to see the end results of.  So far I have yet to have a “good drawing day” this semester. I guess the consequence for not drawing all summer except for basic quick sketches before painting for over a year is rearing its ugly head. Hopefully between my two art classes I will be able to get back into the swing of drawing. I hope this is just a slow start and things will pick up soon.

Thursday we got our mannequins and scraped the clay off of them. It was a little weird to be peeling off the clay. I kept thinking about how much it would hurt if the mannequin was real.  Good things he isn’t. My mannequin’s heal is broken and he spins around when I would really prefer he stay still. I guess we will just have to get used to each other, seeing as Lyle and I are stuck with each other for the semester. Yes, I did indeed name my mannequin. I also named my car, I’m just that cool. We went through notes about the parts of the spine and the difference between tendons and ligaments. Most of the stuff from this week seems to just be a refresher of stuff I already know, after having drawing one and my dad being a chiropractor.  But it’s nice to have. I still need to work on my drawing grip. But one thing at a time seems to be the only way my brain has functioned recently- (usually that one thing is listening and staring off into space, but that’s beside the point). Maybe soon my brain will wake up and function properly. Until then, lots of coffee, and one thing at a time. Pictures will come soon. My camera is acting up.

Week 2. Sept. 13-18

In class on Tuesday this week we did blind contours of our shells and continuous line drawings. Then we gathered in small groups and critiqued each others drawing. We were told to discuss and take notes about our drawings and how the other group members feel we observed the object we were drawing. I was told that I observed the object well. I paid attention to the raised lines on the shell as well as the colored lines going the opposite direction. I was informed that I have a clean and precise execution of the subject. I had difficulty with both the continuous line. I have a sketchy drawing style and have issues with not picking up my drawing utensil. On Thursday in class we drew a model and worked on short and long poses. It was pointed out to me that I need to draw larger during long drawings but I found it difficult when I was also trying to concentrate on not picking up my pencil and going back to my sketchy style. I flashed back to drawing one during class when I was told I was drawing wrong and had to pay attention to how I was drawing. When I hold my pencil “correctly” I have no control over where it makes the marks. I understand it will take a while to build up the muscle memory but for now trying to do too many things at once is going to be kind of a pain. I’m not too excited for that. I did enjoy drawing the model. I thought it was going to be awkward drawing a live nude model, but by the end of the class I looked at her as if I were just drawing my rock. No longer thinking of her as a nude woman but instead as an object with many different lines and surfaces. I’m thinking this week I will try to get enough sleep before class and wear better shoes so I’m not so distracted during the long poses. Maybe I will also draw bigger and better.

Introduction

       I am a studio art major with a painting emphasis at UW Stout. I have been interested in art for as long as I can remember but it wasn't until high school that I decided art was what I wanted to do with my life. I hope to do commission work and freelance when I graduate but I haven't truly decided. I've done a bit of commissioned work for some friends and family on the side over the past few years and I really enjoy it. My paintings don't really stick to a specific style. I have a range from realistic landscape, imaginary landscape and portraiture, abstract, to whatever else I'm inspired to paint. I've painted on canvas, metal, painted wood, rusted saws, canvas paper, and drawing paper but my favorite has been wood panel. Some of my favorite paintings have been ones I've had complete freedom with. I maybe have a top 10 list of favorite paintings. One is a painting of jungle I painted as a birthday present for a friend last year. One is a painting my mother asked for when I was in high school. It is a bunch of overlapping geometric shapes in shades of gray with complimentary red swirls to add excitement. I really enjoy painting dancers. I find the long flowing lines of their bodies and their movements relaxing to mimic with a paintbrush. One painting that has inspired my work is John Martin’s Pandemonium. I saw this painting when it was in the MIA for the Louvre exhibit. I couldn’t tear myself away from it, and if I did I always went back. I don’t look at other artists enough but I’m trying to start. I’ve been told numerous times that I should be aware of other artists and what they do.