Life Drawing Summary

This semester has been really fun. I have enjoyed every part of it and feel I have improved in my drawing skills.

One thing I hate about taking art classes is that we are forced to do things by a certain deadline, and have certain

specifications to follow. However, for this class I felt it was very laid back, which helped me ENJOY drawing and

felt like I was doing it for fun rather than for school. This is really important, because it makes me not only enjoy

what I am doing, but it also helps me be better at what I am doing! So I really appreciate that.

I have been recommending to people to take this class, because it is fun, relaxing, interesting, and also challenging.

At first I hated doing the skeleton and the shell, but towards the end of the semester, I found it fun and theraputic,

and helpful. Making the contour lines on the shell has helped me with my sketches for my industrial design classes, so I really

am happy about that. My shells got better and better each time I did them, and I was happy with how they ended up turning out.

My first shell was horrible, but after getting a new shell, I enjoyed what I was looking at, therefore drawing better.

Going to the Bodies Exhibit at Mall of America made me appreciate making the muscles on the skeleton

more, because I had a better understanding of what I was doing. I was really frustrated with the skeleton at first, because

I just couldn't grasp how the muscles were supposed to look from the book. But then Amy made us start all over again, which

I was really happy about! I sat down and took my time looking at every little detail, which helped me make a better mannequin

at the end. There is a big difference when comparing my first mannequin to the final one. Pictures don't do it justice, but

when looking at it live it is really nice to look at.

Overall, I have really enjoyed this class! I tend to get stressed out from my industrial design classes (which i love to death, but

one can only handle so much in one semester!) so this class has been a nice balance. Now, I don't mean this is a 'slacker

class' at all, because even though the homework load has been light, I feel it has been very helpful. We have gone through

a lot of drawings and a lot of material, and we have learned a ton of stuff, so I feel this class has been very beneficial.

I keep on referring to it as therapy, which I strongly feel it is. I always want to just sit down and draw people, but I never have

time and I've never felt confident enough in my drawing skills to do it. So this class has given me the chance to actually do it.

The only negative thing I have to say about this class is that I wish we had spent more time on the face, arms and hands.

For industrial design, it is important to be able to draw hands, because often times they are used in sketches to demonstrate

how an object is being used. So I am a little bummed that we didn't get to spend more time on that. Other than that, I am very

pleased with the class and would recommend it to anyone who is considering taking it!

Here's the link to my flickr page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44071825@N04/sets/72157623010037468/

Thanksgiving break

I really enjoy learning about the facial features. I wish we could spend more time on it... Over break, I managed to get my uncle, aunt, cousins and parents to pose for me so I could draw their eyes and noses. I haven't done portraits of people since high school, so it was fun being able to do that again at an older age. I didn't have a lot of time to draw them, because they were getting impatient. After all, it was Thanksgiving. But I managed to get some drawings in my sketchbook anyway.

I find it difficult to do the nose from straight on. It is hard to show the tip of the nose without making the person look like a pig or an alien! Contour lines help, but I still don't feel confident in it. I am trying hard to make the eyes look more three dimensional, but I am having problems with that. I feel I have a good grasp on the face since I draw faces all the time, but I tend to make faces look two dimensional, so this is a nice challenge. Hopefully I will improve on this, because I have always wanted to get better!

final shell reflection

Besides this shell drawing being 3 times as big as the last one, there are a few differences between my most recent one and the previous one. I added more contrast in this drawing, because I learned from last time that my shell didn't pop out of the paper enough. I also decided to use heavier charcoal pencils to make it viewable from far away, because my last drawing was very light and difficult to see when standing 5 feet away. I also changed the angle of the shell, turning it upside down and backwards. In my previous drawing, I got mixed up with contour lines showing form versus the crease directions on the shell. So this time I decided to focus on the form instead of the crease lines.

I was struggling at first trying to figure out where and how I was going to draw on this giant piece of paper. I ended up finding a blank wall in my walk-in closet, so I pinned it up vertically and started drawing off of a picture I took of it. I had no table to put the shell on, so when I looked at the shell it would constantly be at a different angle. Therefore I figured taking a picture and looking at that angle would be more accurate. That gave me the outline shape of it in light pencil, and from there I turned some music on and started putting contours on. Since it was such a big shell, I kept on drawing different parts of it, going all over the piece of paper until it all came together.

Overall I am pretty pleased with the final outcome, but I really wish I had put more emotion to it and not made it so clean and organized. I'm always too scared to be messy, so that is an area I still need to work on. During the critique, that is mostly what we talked about. Amy also talked about making the overall form more organic and real looking, by altering the perfect lines to be more disorganized, forming a different shape, rather than a perfect curve. Even if the shell didn't look that way, I can always make things up to make the shell not as static.

It's scary when drawing on a big piece of paper like that, cuz I feel I only get one shot, so I better draw it the way I'm comfortable. So for the next shell, I plan on taking more risks.

I had a huge project due for my industrial design class on Wednesday.

So I am running on 7 hours of sleep from the last 3 days.

Sunday: 3 hours of sleep

Monday: 4 hours of sleep

Tuesday: 0 hours of sleep. I woke up at 7:30 on Monday for the field trip we had, went to bed at 6:30 PM the next day. That means I was awake for 35 hours straight- no naps! I was starting to hallucinate and say weird things, and during my presentation for the CEO of the engineering company that was going to look at our design, I almost fainted. I had to sit down during my presentation.

Was I happy we drew 2 skulls and nothing else during the whole class on Thursday? Definitely!!!

The field trip to the Bodies Exhibit at Mall of America was really fun! It was amazing to see such neat things, and even more amazing trying to imagine how it was all done! It definitely helped me see how bodies look inside (obviously) and I learned a lot. One thing I was surprised to see was how thin all the muscles were on the feet. I had made them out of clay to be about 10 times the size! So now I definitely have a better understanding of the muscles. It also helped to see the texture of muscles and how stringy they were. It gave them more dimension and texture. I thought it was really crazy how most of the dead bodies were homeless asians that they had taken from the streets. One of the dead people really freaked me out, because he was in a running position, and I stared directly into his pupils, and it looked like any second he would come alive and run right into me! It really freaked me out! After when we went to the art museum, I had fun as well. My classmate and I had fun trying to guess where all the paintings were from without looking at the label. My favorite part was looking at the products and furniture displays (since I am an industrial design major). The Czech photography was really impressive, as well. It was neat that the photography was mixed with painting. I have never thought of doing that before!

Here are 2 drawings of a skull I made on Wednesday. It was really fun drawing them. I had a little trouble on the curvature of the teeth of the first skull, but overall I think it turned out pretty well. I think it is a cool concept that Amy is going to lecture on the skull after we draw them. I think that is an interesting approach of teaching. It will be fun seeing how different the skull drawings will look after we have been lectured on them!

These are drawings from this previous week after learning about the foot.

I'm pretty pleased for the most part. The 4th drawing of the foot was very 'Picasso-esque' because I drew all of the bones on the foot as if seen from a top view, but the foot was actually at an angle, so the perspective is completely off. However, I'm kinda happy I did it that way because it helped me get a better image of what the foot looks like and got me to practice drawing the bones. I am using more reference lines and drawing the figures with angular lines, and then going in to draw the actual curves. I feel this is helping me get more confident lines since I have something to reference. Overall, I think I have gotten better at drawing even just in this past week. It's strange how it never gets old drawing the same things over and over twice a week. Every slightest angle that is different or body part we focus on drawing can make the slightest difference, and I really enjoy every class.

So the first shell we did in class I did not feel very comfortable with, therefore not succeeding at it, therefore really disliking the shell! But now with the new shells we got, I really like mine! It is sweet looking :D Before I started drawing the new shell, I looked back at my previous shell and remembered the feedback I had received from it, as well as looking at a sketch Amy had done to demonstrate a better way to go about drawing it. So when it came to drawing this new one (as shown in the picture), I came prepared and with a good attitude. I used more contrast and line weight, and I didn't use as many cross contours as in the last one. The last one looked too grid-like, so I made this shell more flowy. So in comparison to my previous shell: I like the new shell, I feel comfortable drawing it, therefore I feel I succeeded at it :)

A step of improvement?

So I feel like I am getting more comfortable with drawing bodies like I was mentioning in my last blog. I was talking about how my doodles are always floating heads because I am always too scared I'll ruin the doodles by adding a body! I was mentioning this in class, and Amy suggested that I should upload some examples of how my doodles have improved, so I have added pages from my sketchbook that show how the doodles have developed!

This first image is from my sketchbook a couple months ago. I started drawing the body, but realized I was ruining the doodle, so I started scribbling all over to cover it up....

This was from a few weeks ago, and I still didn't dare to add the body!

Here I at least added parts of the shoulders?

Here I actually started drawing one woman's dress. We hadn't gone through the thighs yet, so I stopped at the legs! :)

Yay I added legs!! Not so sure they look right, but it's a step up anyway! Now I just have to work on feet...

This semester has been very interesting so far.

I have always loved drawing people, but usually tend to stop at the neck, because I am always too scared to draw the body. However, now I feel I am way better at drawing the body, so this class has made doodling more fun for me! When looking at my gesture drawings from day 1 up until this point, I see a dramatic difference. I drew gesture drawings in a completely different way, and now I have more of a sophisticated look to it. I feel I have improved on line quality, and the way I draw. By simply changing the position of my hand in relationship to the pencil, I feel it has changed my drawing style. Also, I feel I have become a better sketcher for my industrial design classes, because I have started using contour lines when I sketch now, and it has made my sketches look way more 3 dimensional and professional! Amy has taught us some really good tips that have helped me. For instance, when drawing a still life, look at the surroundings in the background to compare where things should be placed. That really helps with perspective! I also feel I have improved in not being as much of a perfectionist. I have been taking more risks and doing things I normally wouldn't do, and it is slowly making me become less of a perfectionist. Sometime perfectionism can be good, but sometimes it can make art look very boring and static.

Some things I still need to work on, however, are almost all the things I have improved on! Even though I feel I have made some great improvements, it's still not perfect, and I still have room for improvement. I have a tendency to make things look flat, so I need to work on making things have more dimension.

I would like to get better at gesture drawing by putting more emotion to them. I feel I understand how to draw them, I just need to stop thinking so much while I'm doing them, and just let my hand take me where it wants to go. I would also like to learn more about the skull. I really hope we get to that this semester! Since I love drawing faces, I feel it could help me improve my skills if I learn more about the skull. Hands are another thing I would love to practice drawing more! As an industrial designer, I need to know how to draw hands. When I demonstrate how a product is used, I need to draw hands to show how they interact with the product.

Overall, I feel this class has been very helpful and fun, and I am thinking about taking drawing 2 sometime. :)

Here's a link to my photos so far: http://www.flickr.com/photos/44071825@N04/

So this week has been very chill and relaxing. I was able to go home this weekend for the first time since school started, so that was nice! Now that my big projects for my other classes are done, I am able to start fresh and relax. It was interesting learning about the pelvis this week, however I wish Amy would've lectured instead of watching the video. I thought the professor in the video was very knowledgeable and interesting to listen to, but the fact that the movie was so old and it was extremely hard to see what he was drawing since the line weight was very light, it was hard to follow along. I noticed that my notes consisted of my own drawings and doodles of the human body instead of focusing on the pelvis :P So after watching the video, I don't feel very confident about the way the pelvis looks! This weekend I am going to sit down and build the muscles on the skeleton and hopefully I will have a better understanding of the pelvis.

For some reason I was very intrigued with the video and how old it was. I thought it was very cool to be part of a lecture that happened several years ago. The professor is probably not even alive anymore, so it was very cool to be 'part of the future' going back to the past and being essentially one of the students in the class. :)

This week has been extremely stressful, having 2 final projects due on Monday and Tuesday for my other classes, so not having class last week was extremely helpful for me! I basically pulled 3 all nighters in a row Sunday-Tuesday, fitting in about 3-4 hours of sleep a day with inbetween naps, so I'm very exhausted and feel very out of it. I feel like everything I do while I am 'awake' is part of a dream... I'm really really enjoying this class, however. It is nice learning about the muscles and bones of the body. I feel I am learning a lot in this class. Building the skeletons with clay was very confusing at first while referencing the book. All the different angles get confusing, and when moving onto the next muscle to build, it is hard to see where it is supposed to lay in comparison to the previous muscle. I am getting used to it more, though, so it's starting to get fun and even relaxing. My gesture drawing style is changing and it is fun to see the progress. Once we start drawing the model for 25 minutes though, it starts getting confusing, and I end up outlining the figure too much. That is the challenge I am trying to get over at this point, and making my strokes have more feeling than straight up 'cartoon-like'. Hopefully I will catch up on sleep this weekend and get back on track for the next week to come!

This week has been nice (as far as life drawing goes... the rest of my classes have been more intense than ever!!). There is a reason I am an art/design major, because everything is hands on. However, when Amy gave us a long lecture about the muscles and tendons of the human body, I was fully focused the whole entire time. I thought it was a very helpful and interesting lecture, and I have already learned more by just listening. The way Amy made us remember certain terms was exactly the way I memorize things, so I thought that was very fun and helpful to see! The whole class is structured in a nice and organized way that makes me motivated and excited to learn and become a better artist. I had a nice critique with Amy that made me realize how I could've gone about drawing my shell differently. (I had received a very difficult shell with lots of bumps and twists, and Amy showed me the most effective way of illustrating it with contour lines). I have already started doodling human figures in my sketchbook while sitting in other classes, and I can see how it is going to help me in the long run. I feel I have already improved in certain areas, and it will especially come in handy when I need to demonstrate how a product works and its scale compared to a human. Now we have to build the muscles part of a skeleton which will help me draw the human body. This kinda stuff really interests me, because I feel I actually have a use and interest for learning these things, as compared to other classes that are simply a waste of time. I have heard a lot of talk about how Life Drawing helps and that everyone should take the class, and so far I totally agree!!

Here are just some images of gesture drawings and observation drawings of live models.

Back to Menomonie; Back to Work.

This week has been extremely stressful for me. I was in Sweden over the whole summer, spending time with my sister and family, as well as working at a study abroad traveling agency called Blueberry. I came back to the US a week before school started, and I am still in summer mode! Before I knew it, I was back in a totally different country, having a schedule I need to follow! My brain has been all over the place and I feel I am having extreme difficulties getting back into design mode. Taking this drawing class has been extremely relaxing so far, even though it's only been 2 classes. I feel like it is helping me slowly get back into school mode, and it is really helping me enjoy what I am doing. It's like therapy. Being an industrial design major is extremely stressful and time consuming, that at this point I feel it's a pain, rather than a passion. Once I get back into the swing of things, I know I will be excited about my major again.

I was born and raised in Sweden until I was 9 years old, and I have been going back for vacation about once a year since then. This summer was the first time I actually lived in Sweden for a whole 3 months, which was a life-changing experience. For one, switching languages was very interesting. I started to think in Swedish, and I had to figure out a whole new way of speaking so that I could sound like myself. At first, I felt really awkward and I didn't really know how to bring my personality out in the way I spoke, but the more I spoke, I was able to joke and express myself in the way I wanted. With art, I am still getting to know how to express myself, and I hope to get better at it. There are so many different ways of communicating, and I think that I have learned a lot about myself by simply spending a whole summer speaking a different language.

Another thing I found interesting was design in Sweden. I have realized that my style is very scandinavian (when it comes to expressing myself with fashion, and design) without even knowing it! Everything is very minimal, contemporary, simple, organized and practical. That is exactly what I am trying to portray with my portfolio. So walking around all of Stockholm and going into design boutiques really helped me get inspiration and excitement about design. I went to Berlin last summer and was able to see a bunch of amazing design, including a store that was all white with nothing in it, except for in the very back of the store, there was a little table with 10 pairs of sunglasses on it! I feel traveling really opens your mind up and you get exposed to so many different kinds of art and design, and ways of living in general.

So now I am back in Menomonie, Wisconsin.

I am happy being back, but it will take a little while to get used to the change in environment. This drawing class is actually my favorite class at this point, and it is really helping me get adjusted. When there is so much else going on, it is nice to come to a class where your mind can observe and get lost. I think I have a lot of stuff to work on, but I say that in a positive way. I am super excited to become a better artist and be proud to show off my artwork. Something I would like to become better at is not being such a perfectionist. I am very clean with all my work, and it looks so perfect that it becomes boring to look at. These gesture drawings we do in class are gradually helping me get better and be a little sloppier, and feel that it's ok now. We'll see how the next few weeks go, with hope that I get back into creativity mode again. I'm planning on drawing the shell I got in class, while listening to good music, having inscents flowing, and cool lights shining in the background. :)

Why Life Drawing 1?

I am taking the course Life Drawing 1 this semester and I am very excited!

I started drawing people and cartoons at a very young age, which is what initially got me interested in drawing. Since then, I feel my skills have reached a plateau, and I would like to progress from drawing very flat, simplistic people to getting more rhythm, dimension and depth. I am majoring in industrial design, so by knowing more about the human body and drawing in general, I feel I will be a much stronger designer. I love drawing faces, but I always tend to stop at the neck, because it's what I feel most comfortable doing! So by taking this class, I hope to become better at drawing the human body and getting more emotion into what I draw.

I haven't been able to transfer my files to my new computer yet, so I have no images of my work to share! But if you're interested in seeing my industrial design work, you can check out my website (which is still in construction by the way) at http://cassiebjorck.tripod.com/