Nobody is perfect...

Today’s blog is to demonstrate that while we may all have talents of our own, or excel in certain fields, no matter how good you think you are, there is always room for improvement. I was left with this thought after a particularly trying day in Drawing I class. We still have yet to begin shading, but I have been doing it anyway out of boredom. No to toot my own horn, but I am at the head of the class (toot toot). If I did not use shading to slow myself down I would run laps around my classmates as far as quantity of drawings.

This week we began drawing plaster casts of faces. As some of you may have read in the last post, we aren’t supposed to actually think of them as faces, but simple ‘draw what we see.’ Last week’s post showed what I think is one of my best drawing pieces. Aside from being very naturalistic, I also managed to frame it perfectly on the page. However, I will admit, it was not an exact replica of how the plaster head looked in class. Sometimes I will ‘fib’ in my drawings to make them appear more idealistic.

However, my ability to do this was utterly shattered today. We were still drawing the same batch of plaster heads, but today, many of them were turned upside down, or on their sides, or laid at angles to where foreshortening ruled the image. I got agitated with the first set up which actually had me drawing the same exact head from last time, but upside down. I gave it three shots and got extremely frustrated with the results.

After a quick break, we came back and had the set up rearranged. This time, I was looking at a head turned to three quarters view and tilted back drastically. I spent a good 30 to 45 minutes attempting to capture the cast’s likeness, but upon my third attempt, I gave up on making it look like the head in front of my and just drew the shadows but on a more ideal face.

The end result of my efforts was this:

 Now, I hear objections from others whenever I say this, but there are a multitude of things wrong with this picture. That is not to say that I hate it, in fact, I quite like it. For only spending about 30 minutes on it, it didn’t turn out too bad. Regardless, that is not what the plaster head looked like (apart from the shadows), and even so, the eye is off, the nose was haphazardly done and the lights were turned on and class dismissed before I had a chance to really rework all the issues I’m seeing with it now.

I’m still posting it, though. Not because I have nothing else to post. I mean, I still have a few days to find something better anyway. I’m posting it because it shows my own imperfections. Pride goeth before the fall and to hide your weaknesses is to deny yourself a chance to overcome them.

So, that’s it for now. I’ll be busy for a while catching up on projects, organizing the new apartment and, beginning sometime next week, training a new dog. Which reminds me, any suggestions on names for a Maltese/Shih Tzu mix with an under bite that makes him look a bit like an Ewok? His name’s currently ‘Duke,’ but that doesn’t fit. Oh, and before you flood in with a bunch of actual Ewok names, we decided Wicket is too abrasive and no other Ewok names really stood out.

Until next time!