Open Drawing Class

Every Tuesday is an open drawing class, free for everybody to join. I was there this week and enjoined the concentrated working atmosphere. The following image is a 3o minute study that I think worked the best. I am glad there is the opportunity to join the free class and gain a  little bit more practice.

30 minute study | Katharina Jourdan

2. Week

This week we continued drawing a model. It is very helpful that we’re starting each lesson with fast gesture drawings, only concerned with the proportions and angles of the body.  By increasing the drawing time we were too focused on details hence it is easy to loose the view of the whole. I recognized a little improvement compared to last week, although there is a long way to go.

cross contour drawing | Katharina Jourdan

In our Life Drawing I class we will also work on a manikin. We are going to build the muscles from clay so we will gain a better understanding of the human body. On Thursday we started with the back.

1. Week

seashell | blind drawing | Katharina Jourdan

During out first week in Life Drawing I class, we received a shell. The individual and organic shapes of shells can be compared with the unique forms of human bodies. The first exercise was a blind contour drawing, forcing us to focus on the details of the shell. I had a close look and became acquainted with my seashell. The second exercise was to draw a contour drawing without lifting our pencil from the page. I realized that details of the shell were lost because I focused more on the paper.

fast gesture drawing | Kathairina Jourdan

At our second meeting we started with drawing models. First we did very fast gesture drawings and increased time more and more. For the last drawing we have had 30 minutes. For me it was difficult to draw the whole body in a short time and get the correct proportions.

I am excited to develop my skills.

Introduction

Since my childhood I like to paint and do collages. My grandma was a great drawer. She often drew animals for me and I really enjoyed coloring them. Actually I was more interest in colors than in drawing. So I made the decision to study color design. But after studying color design for one year I figured out that I want to be involved in the whole process of illustration.  I have a strong need to express my view of what is going on in the world nowadays. Because of this I changed in to graphic design.

dog and his owner | Katharina Jourdan | collage | 2009

At my University in Hildesheim, Germany my favorite classes were an illustration class and illustration project. The illustration class was taught by Barbara Koenig. I enjoyed it a lot because she really knows how to support each person personally and its skills in a familiar way. Thus, my illustration work turn out the best I have done so far. For example we have done a series of dogs with their owner, above you can see one of them. The illustration project taught by Andreas Hess I liked because he gave us a political theme to work with. This is the field I would like to go into with design. The second image shows women in Gaza, Palestine.

 crime scene Palestine | Katharina Jourdan | collage | 2009

I chose Life Drawing I because my grandma gave me her passion for drawing.  From this class I hope to enhance my drawing skills and have a better understanding of human forms. I want to be able to achieve that my illustration will look like I have them in my mind.

When I graduate I would like to work as an illustrator. I would prefer that some Illustration Agencies link “2 Agenten” in Berlin would take me in their portfolio. Thus, I will be able to make illustration for actual politics, newspapers, and magazines as well as book cover illustrations. I also would like to use my experience to travel through Asian countries and combine this with graphic design.

The last images shows the view of my window in Hildsheim:

view from my window in Hildesheim, Germany, Katharina Jourdan, drawing, 2008

If you would like to see some of my graphic design and illustration work, please have a look at my website:  katharina-jourdan.com. This is my work that I am most proud of. To design and build the website took me several months and includes some of my first self-made java scripts. I created the website last semester during my internship in a web design and graphic design company in India. Soon I will provide the text in English too.

This is a blog to present my drawings and portfolio work that I am going to do this semester in the class Life Drawing I at UW Stout.