Fall Semester 2010 Life Drawing Overview

I felt like this post should be in red. Some kind of festive bold color to celebrate the progress of me, and my fellow student artists & designers this semester in LD I.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliaguettler/

Here the link to my flickr in which my work has been organized into four basic catagories of the semester Manekin, Gesture Drawings, Long Drawings & Shell Drawing Homework.

The semester has been an extremely productive one, and I walked into this class not having taken a drawing class since Drawing II my sophomore year of college. Figurative drawing is worlds away, and in my opinion way more helpful in figuring out the rendering of form. One of the things I feel like I was most successful at working on this semester was taking a step back from my tendency to generalize things and really LOOK at people, at hands, at feet-at things I didn't take the time to pour my drawing soul into before. Something as simple and beautiful as a Tortoise shell is something I would have completely overlooked before, but now I see the intricate details that are worth recording on paper. I feel very empowered by the anatomy lessons I learned this semester. Building Allen up from nothing has been something that has been tricky for me, but something I really had to take the time to master. I had to sit down and look over images of muscles-of the human anatomy, and I feel really proud of how far I came from not knowing what the hell to do with the clay on the manekin.

The gesture drawings were something else I felt empowered on. I really had no clue what I was doing there at first. With classical long drawing poses, I felt like it was a language I inheritly understood. The gesture drawings were something else entirely. After awhile though I could see the sacrem, I could see the lungs, I could see the tibia steading the leg, and the knee caps flexing. This was a new language I had to learn. The gesture drawings I uploaded look so simple, yet they are so intricate in the fact that you have to know the placement of the organs in the body to understand, to truly be able to draw gesture drawings.

Anyways, here are some images of how Allen turned out- as well as my final shell drawing in which I wasn't as happy as the second, but I tried to really grasp the texture of the shell-I'm going to be sad to see this go...I can't wait to take LD II!

Quiet Weekend Update

I am
sitting in my living room assessing what left I have to do, and what I have gotten done so far. All while watching Titanic. One of my favorite movies I have to say. It's everyone's secret favorite. Yesterday was a really busy day in Applied Arts, the senior design shows were happening and they were really wonderful!! The faculty show was going on as well as the Life Drawing II show. First I have to comment, the life drawing II show was amazing. The accuracy of their skeletons was something straight out of an anatomy book. I was very very impressed. The Faculty show was as always really enjoyable, I love being able to see our professors own work after knowing them in class. So here's some of what I put together for our sculpture show.

the text used is from contemporary female pop music. I guess I decided to do this and use this as a means of a language because it went with my theme of exploring the celebrity all semester. My intentions are to get the viewer to start connecting the photographs, the lyrics and thinking about the way pop culture seeps into our every day life. I aesthetically really liked the visual product of this. The series was projected onto the back wall of my space. So that was last night. A lot of appetizers for dinner. I'm generally exhausted today. I have done a lot of going back and forth. On thursday night I was back in Minneapolis, and I am so excited to be back in the cities.

I have been thinking a lot about what I have learned this semester. And that will be discussed in my final portfolio! Missy and I turned in our art history project. That is another thing that I was pleased with the results. Just crossing things off my list. Not my Christmas list. Not yet...haven't done any shopping. oops. 1 week till christmas.

Creative Process

I am currently sitting in my studio, thinking a lot about what I want to create and show on Friday for the Advanced Sculpture show. I thought I would work out a lot of what I am thinking in the form of my blog. So you guys, thanks for listening to my ramblings. Small talk wise-it's f**king cold out! oh my gosh. Did I move to Hoth? I don't remember things being this bad last year, but obviously after 22 years in the midwest I have really selective memory. Speaking of memory, that is something I have been trying to dig up what to convey about this subject matter. My fears: I feel like every young artist tries to deal with this subject matter at some time, and I myself have delved into the subject matter coming up with only bits and pieces.

An artist I have been looking at a lot is Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster. I'm looking over art now and they describe foerester as someone who "tests various vocabularies of the imagination and memory." That is something that really intrigues me. The idea of crawling into people's memories, and more importantly i guess their imaginations.

"I want to transform the viewer into a detective, generate a seeking spirit for a research for a curiosity for other stories unless it is one's own: to stress the importance of all kinds of narratives as self-languages, and the values of clues or vocabularies."- this is a quote from Ms.Foerester, and I completely understand and hope to emulate such a reaction in a viewer someday.

I have been experimenting with this kind of language, thinking about would reach the viewer, produce a strong narrative that the viewer can use their imagination to fill in the blank, maybe that blank will be nostolgia, or whimsy--

if you want to see the result of my ramblings please come to the advanced sculpture "We Hate it When Our Friends Become Successful." show Friday at 7pm in room 120.

Thinking about the beach...in a snow storm

Here is my shell drawing: I hope everyone survived the blizzard this weekend. I have spent a lot of time over the weekend working on building the muscles in my mannequin. I am almost done! So many little intricate muscles....

Tuesday. Frozen Tundra, Hands Hands Hands

A tuesday blogpost...coming to you live from the life drawing room. Today in class we critiqued our shells. I will post my shell drawing w/india ink-we have one more to complete but I am quite pleased by it. I was very impressed with Alisha's and Annie's as well as well as Matt's! I took good notes for improving my next shell drawing and I am rather excited. Annie used this amazing remedy of teas, and the brillance of the color of the tea was something that surprised me quite a bit. I like to be surprised. Today was a very relaxed day in class. Amy gave a brief lecture on hands, and we drew each others. I worked on Alisha's hands for awhile. I am going to try to do a few other studies as hands are something I feel my figurative work is weak on.

So...it's approaching. The end of the semester. I cannot believe it. My mannequin muscles are something I should update you all on--here's how it's going: not so hot. I will be updating on Thursday for a special edition post on the muscles. STAY TUNED (and oh so excited.) Allen needs to look really good for finals.

In Baroque Art, I am collaborating with my fellow artist Missy Hoch in recreating some famous paintings and works of art in Baroque art, and putting a contemporary spin on them. Here I am as the girl with the pearl earring by Vermeer:
I am pleased with it. I will also post some photographs of Missy as Artemesia Gentileschi. I think this portrait turned out as we wanted it to. It captures the feeling of the original painting, but with a contemporary feeling. What do you guys think? Does it translate?
I also am hard at work sorting out my work I am doing for the advanced Sculpture show "We Hate it When Our Friends Become Successful." It will be on December 17th, and will also provide any students who are thinking about signing up for sculpture II next semester (you should!) the opportunity to check out our new studio space. So mark that on your calenders as well. It's the same night as the senior shows so I think we will all be able to wander around check out some awesome work, and pat ourselves on the back for making it through another semester.

I will be posting more this week. If you have read this I applaud you!