Class Review

The semester is almost over. Thus, I took a closer look at my work and realized that I have made visible progress in my drawing skills. Besides Life Drawing I, I am also in another drawing class. In this class, we are concentrating mainly on still life drawings. Both classes were influencing my drawing skill in a different way. However this gives me just more options how to draw! This was my final drawing in the other class:

Still Life with Animals | Katharina Jourdan

I realized that drawing is first of all observing and analyzing not to report the reality but your personal view. A drawing tells not only a story about the image matter but also about the person how drew the image.

During the end of the Semester allowed myself more correction work during a longer study. I also tried different styles. I really like the simplification of outline drawings, especially if a graphic element is added.  But during the Semester I start to appreciate the contour drawings as well and focus more on contour lines in the second have of the semester. I still have to think more about composition before I start to draw. Right now for better or worse my compositions happens more by accident.

I created a Portfolio to present the best drawings from this Semester.

View my Portfolio here.

Final Shell Drawing | Katharina Jourdan

I’m glad that I had the opportunity to study abroad. It is a great source of influences. I always love to come to know a different culture better. It also opens my mind to analyze the positive and negative things in my University.  I enjoyed all my classes a lot and I’m happy with the result. I gained a lot! Back in Hildesheim I will take another figurative drawing class.

Thank you, Amy for the pleasant and productive time!

Katharina Jourdan

13. Week | Hand and Skull

On Tuesday, in Life Drawing I, we spoke about our shell homework assignment. For more information, have a look on the next blog post.

Hand drawing | Katharina Jourdan

Then Amy gave us a lecture about the bones of the hand and forearm. Afterward, we drew our hands in small groups to have a closer look at the hand instead everybody drawing from one model. Nicole and I switched every 30 minutes. Thus, both of us had the chance to study the hand twice in detail.

Both of Nicole's drawings are awesome. I struggled a lot with all of the plain changes and need to practice more.

skull sketch | Katharina Jourdan

On Tuesday, in Life Drawing I, we concentrated on the skull. As usual, Amy gave us a lecture on the board and then we started to draw from the skeletons. A skull is very complex. Thus, I was facing a lot of difficult decisions. My first two drawings didn't work well, but I can see an improvement in the last one. The most I struggled with was bringing out the cheekbones. The plain changes around the eye sockets were a real challenge.

skull sketch | Katharina Jourdan

13. Week | Third Homework

Shell drawing with pencil | Katharina Jourdan

The first image shows the first status of my shell drawing. I was drawing with different pencils. You can see how I improved it compared to my first homework assignment! The second image displays my final shell drawing with ink:

Shell drawing with ink | Katharina Jourdan

During the first 20 minutes in class on Tuesday, we spoke in a group of four students about our shell assignment, and in particular, our experiences with the ink. My image received a lot of attention. I was happy that my group appreciated my work because I spend time and effort on it. I think this pays off. I am satisfied with the result! The group was impressed by the strong color application. They spoke about the depth  and volume created nicely by using dark colors. The main critique of my group was that I may have overused the white crayon. The shell interacts well with the background. One student mentioned that the shell is "dancing" on the background. Maybe the droppings of the ink under the shadow pulls the attention from the shell.

I'm glad that we will have one more shell drawing assignment. In the next drawing, I will work on more clarity in the lighter and upper parts of the shell and integrate the white crayon better.

12. Week

On Tuesday, in the Life Drawing class, Amy gave us the last assignment about the mussel-clay work on our manikins. Until the end of the semester, we will be adding the muscles of the legs, shoulders and arms to our small skeleton. By building the muscles I will take a closer look at the complexity of the human body that hopefully leads into a better understanding and better drawings.

fast skeleton drawings | Katharina Jourdan

On Thursday, we dove deeper into the understanding of the contraction of humans bodies by drawing a skeleton. As we usually draw from a model, we started with faster poses and increased the time at the end of class. Before we started drawing, Amy explained to us the structure of the shoulders. Thus, the main focus in the longer pose was all of the shoulder bones. First of all, I realized that it is hard to start drawing again after a two-week break. My eyes had forgotten the critical view and my hand misremembered line variations. 

long skeleton drawing | Katharina Jourdan

The semester is already coming to an end and I just started to realize how complex the human body is. The teachers advised to always look for certain landmarks on the body and include them in the drawing. However, I feel like I need to practice human figure drawings more. Therefore, I decided to take another figurative drawing class back in Germany in my final semester at the HAWK in Hildesheim.

I would like to remind everybody in my class that we have the great opportunity to join the Open Life Drawing every Tuesday night from 7 to 10 p.m. Male and female models are changing every week. Take the last chance!

11. Week | Field Trip

This week, my Life Drawing I class, we went to our field trip. We visited the Walker Art Center and the Bell Museum of Natural History in Minneapolis. Unfortunately the bus was one and a half hour too late, thus we started our trip at 11:00a.m. instead of 9:30a.m. As we reached the Walker there was just one hour and 15 minutes left. So I had to think about that I would like to see. I decided to see the exhibition of the photographer Alec Soth. He shows images from the ordinary everyday life of people living in the Midwest.

from the series: Sleeping by the Mississippi | Alec Soth

Here you can have a look on the artist's website: http://alecsoth.com/photography/ 



Afterward I went outside to see the artwork from James Turrell. I was very excited about that. Last semester in Germany I went with one of my classes to a James Turrell exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, which I liked a lot. At the Walker Art Center the artist created a room under the earth. If you entered the room you can see the sealing has huge frame though which you can see the sky. I expired the sky through the frame more intensive as I would do it without. After a while two birds entered the field of the sky. It seemed like two sea mull, but I was not quiet sure. Then in a sudden a bird of prey appeared. I was spectacular.



crane | Katharina Jourdan

Later the bus brought us to the Bell Museum of Natural History. There we could see a large, biological collections documenting Wisconsin's biodiversity. It shows all kind of animals like birds and fishes. Our assignment was to draw one of the animals. I decided to draw a crane. But I liked the beaver a lot to.

It was a great day!

10. Week

This week, Tuesday's class was canceled. Therefore, I went to the Open Life Drawing Class at 7 p.m. and enjoyed the quiet working atmosphere with a few other students.

first ink experience | Katharina Jourdan

On Thursday, Amy started with a lecture on how to use the ink for our next seashell homework. She showed us through the example of an online assignment what we have to pay attention to if we are using ink (e.g. the upper parts become the lightest parts of the shell and the curved in parts will be the darkest ones). In a drawing using just charcoal or pencil, the darkest parts are close to the viewer and the lightest parts appear farther away. Afterward, we used ink for the very first time. At first we drew a general contour drawing with pencil for half an hour, then we started with ink.

It was a lot of fun to bring color into the drawing. Colors are always my favorite element to express something. Compared to pencil, ink has a momentum which works on its own.

Poster Offensive No.5 | Exhibition Furlong Gallery

After class, I went to the Furlong Gallery to join the opening of the Poster Offensive No. 5 exhibition. It is a great exhibition showing political poster designs! I recommend everybody at Stout to take the opportunity to see it. I had an interesting conversation with the curator Peet Fetsch how he did an exchange program for a year at my university (HAWK) in Hildesheim, Germany several years ago. For more information, have a look on their website: http://www.posteroffensive.com/.

9. Week | Feet

On Thursday, Amy gave us an assignment about feet. First, she was explaining to us on the board the structure of bones and muscles. Later, we were drawing feet from the model. The teacher gave us time to work on one drawing for tow hours, but I couldn't concentrate for that long and was drawing several faster drawings. I tried to experiment with different drawing styles.

feet study | Katharina Jourdan