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.