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Saturday, January 18, 2014

Beginning

Years ago, when I was in Jr. College, I took a drawing class, recommended by my buddy Doug, to break up the monotony of our technical majors.  It turned out to be great fun, and I have fond memories of our class and classmates.

It was "Basic Drawing and Painting" and it included life drawing.  Life drawing is typically done with live nude models.  We were just a Jr. College, so we had live clothed models.  Actually, I don't know why they weren't nude, but it was a small town where everybody knew everybody else, so it's probably best that they had their clothes on.

The point of drawing live nude models is to practice and learn anatomy and proper proportions.  It helps if the models are naked without all that pesky clothing getting in the way of proper proportions, but we made do.

I remember our instructor.  He was an oldish guy - about the same age as my dad.  He'd never been married and was a bit eccentric as art teachers stereotypically tend to be.  He was extremely observant and very knowledgeable of many of the technical aspects of art.  I learned a surprising amount in that class, which I thought would just be a fun and easy "A".

I decided that, this week, I would take advantage of my school break to revisit Illustration Friday activity.  The prompt is "Beginning", so I wanted an action shot and decided to see if I still had any anatomy drawing skills.

I thought I'd draw a tennis player winding up to serve to "begin" (get it!) a point.  Then I looked for references and ended up using a pic of Michael Chang.  I don't think he's actually serving in my reference photo, but one does not simply draw Michael Chang without including his great legs.



I never finished the drawing - never got past "beginning" (get it!) because it was such a nice day today, that we went to America The Beautiful Park.  Remember America The Beautiful Park from the Abby Cam?  It's a nice local park that we like, although we're not to fancy on the name America The Beautiful Park.



Anyway, we went to America The Beautiful Park and I never finished my Beginning, and  that's the way this post will end.
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14 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's not done? Looks pretty good to me. And the legs! Nice!
I remember the fancy park with the not-so-fancy name. Great pic with the sun coming up over the mountains! You made the right choice to give up Michael Chang for America the Beautiful.

Marcy said...

Nice drawing! I love how you portrayed the muscles.

Linda Hensley said...

Sometimes it's more important to greet the sun than stay inside drawing. I'm glad you managed to do both in one day!

terri said...

You definitely haven't lost your touch. Nice job on the Michael Chang drawing, particularly those legs. Sheesh! Look at the power in those muscles!

Good idea to go outside on a beautiful day. You have to take advantage of them, especially when you don't know how many more beautiful days there will be before Old Man Winter dumps snow and cold temps on you again.

Abby said...

We were throwing the frisbee, and the sun was getting in my eyes, so I stood in the shadow of the fountain. "Time out! Gotta get the camera"

Abby said...

I hear he's a pretty good tennis player too :).

Abby said...

Yup, my cup runneth over!

Abby said...

It looks kind of comic book superheroish, but he really does/did have nice legs! And it's weird to remember that this is January?? I'm sure winter's not over yet, though, so we gotta get out while the gettin's good.

Ms. CrankyPants said...

Is it inappropriate of me to request a nude drawing? He looks like a good, er, subject for that kind of thing. [leering]

Sorry...

Abby said...

Certainly not an inappropriate request, but it would probably be an inappropriate attempt by me!

Rebecca S. said...

I think you did well with his anatomy. There's a real sense of power and gearing up for a shot in the drawing, too.

Riot Kitty said...

I wish I could draw. You have some serious talent!

Abby said...

Thanks, I think he was going for a smash!

Abby said...

As far as addictions go, it's probably one of the healthier ones?