Getting Back on Track

Phew, getting past the more human side of life and design; I would like to start to enjoy the finer sides of blogging about packaging once again.
I recently moved to the Dallas area and started a job as a waitress at a new restaurant. This place is absolutely wonderful. It's based upon simple dining-things you always go to on a menu: burgers, salads, catfish, steak, etc. However, the recipes all have wonderful twists combined with beautiful artistry. DELISH! Although the meals can talk for themselves, and the atmosphere of being placed inside a historic Victorian house, the menus are enough for me to hesitate.

Talking to my other co-workers, I realize that some people not only eat trash, but they couldn't say they would be able to see/feel the difference in confidence of having a good meal if there was a different presentation. There is a difference, truly. Presentation is the key. When receiving a package at Christmas from your older brother, you expect that inside that brown paper bag, smothered with duct tape there will be not much more than dog poop. However, when Great Aunt Lillian drops off her lavishly decorated, glorious shinny gift from the gods, you have a gut feeling that this is going to be stellar! Although the gifts may be quite opposite, meaning your brother picked out some great CD's and your aunt only got you an ugly sweater, you saw the packaging and you knew which one you wanted more. The bigger the package, the better the gift... well, that may not always be true, but that is how our brains think.

So, back to these menus. If I were to sit down and be taken back by the uniqueness of my surroundings only to be followed by someone placing a copy paper menu in front of me- I would be offended. If I were going to pay for not only my meal, but my friends/families- I would be peeved. I would be unsure what I got myself into, and I'd probably try and find something on the menu that "no one could screw up".

Therefore, I have taken it into my hands to create a new and attractive menu. Sticking with the original theme of simple dining, it is not going to be like Great Aunt Lillian's present. Instead it will have curb appeal and allow customers to lick their lips and get ready to cleanse their pallets with an awesome meal!

I'll update with menus soon.

Final for Life Drawing I

I think that any person going into a career that needs to focus on creating for other humans, should take this class. Graphic/visual artists need it in order to accurately portray a human. ID majors need it to see how the body is shaped in order to make forms function well. Educators of art need it to learn how the body works and it's limits in order to teach others.

I have learned so much. It's almost like math, there are formulas that create respective and accurate figures. I felt like I had a lot of open room to make errors and not make make things look perfect, but with a living-breathing-moving model, there is room for adjustments, where as still lives don't change or evolve.

I feel a much stronger connection to understanding arms and legs and torsos, however I am still finding lots of room for improvement on faces and hands. I believe that I love drawing the bottoms of feet the most!

I have really grown in my tool techniques. I have a new way to hold charcoal and a new way to approach my drawing board. Everything is much more fluent and not chopping as in sketches for other classes. I looked at the grade I received at midterm, and although it's highly respectable, I knew that there was SO much room for improvement. It was just me that had to grade myself and keep working on achieving stronger outcomes. My Maniken was probably my biggest challenge, along with my shell at times, but as soon as I learned that perfection does not always make a piece perfect-things progressed and became much more acceptable. I also think the outcomes came out much better!

I want to be a story board writer, or a package designer. Both have the human figure bouncing in an out. So, I know I will be using skills I learned here in order to make better pieces.

Oh, PS
here is my updated flickr.
Enjoy!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenzieowens/sets/

Faces

Faces. I have come to the conclusion that drawing other people's faces are much easier than drawing my own. I think I need to draw my mug at least 50 more times tonight before I might get one that I will accept as my final portrait.
I love drawing lips, they're so luscious. Well, female lips are luscious. Older people have thinner lips, and men often have duller shaped lips than females. The "love filter" is probably my favorite landmark of the face. It is a drastic dip that constructs the curve at the top of the lips. Some people have shallow dips that just make round lips, and others with deep dips angle for pointed tops.

Eyes & Noses

Eyes and noses are what people find to show the most emotion from a human. They look to the eyes to see how to interact, and what mood they feel. I find eyes much easier than noses to draw. Eyes have basic guidelines that are similar from one person to the next.
A sphere for the eyeball itself, than simple curves and tear ducks.
Where as noses are the ruler of the face. They measure out how big other things on the face will be, how long the face is, and the placement of other structures.
Noses have several different architectural points (bridge, glabella, bulb) that are visible on most noses, but they are all SO different. My nose is long and skinny, where as the person next to me has a wide flat nose.
I suppose with so many choices, that is why rhinoplasty is so popular.

Skulls

Skulls are the cherry on the sundae. However, when drawing, they are at times not nearly as sweet. Skulls seem to be a spherical shape. A round shape that is smooth. However, there are bumps and curves from the different parts of the skull. The frontal bone is rounded but met by the medial line that separates the two halves of parietal bones.
Baby skulls have soft spots because when coming out of the womb they are not fused together. However, as they grow older the different sections come together to form the hard shell that protects the brain.
The skull also forms the facial structures for each individual-but that may come in the next blog.

Hands

This is a laugh, but I was digging up old pictures from elementary school and even middle school that I had drawn. From the start I have been curious about the human figure and trying to draw it accurately. I believe Leonardo DiCaprio drawing Kate Winslet in Titanic started it all but that's not the point. For the longest time I noticed, I drew figures with their arms twisted around to their backs. Although it gave many of the images innocent poses, the main reason is because I was very weak at drawing hands.
Hands are tough to get down, even now I tend to save illustrating hand gestures until the very last moment. However, when doing them as gestures, I use to make them into crescent shapes and was pleased, but now I base them off of the muscles that build them. I feel like they are much more lively and have a sense of motion to them. It's very exciting, and now I like placing hands in visible places. It's great.

Posture

Going into the muscles of the upper thorasic area and the pectoral region, I see how much the muscles are allowed to stretch and pull when a person sits up straight or slouches. It makes me wonder how we can possibly train ourselves to sit up straight, is it really beneficial in the end to have better posture? I believe it feels better, however when the body feels sluggish, not holding rigid poses seem to feel more comfortable. When models sit or lay in long poses, their bodies seem tense in some parts, especially joints. I find myself making darker lines to get the feeling of tension and discomfort.
The human body can be physically strong, however, can be equally weak when it comes to the smallest inflictions. Including poor posture and uncomfortable settlements.

Cooking with Muscles

I remember the day in class that Amy showed us a slab of meat (online) and how the white lines were actually sections were muscles have been cross cut.

I saw this while adventuring out in Wisconsin's wilderness and cooking up a 2" arm roast over a campfire. If you pick up the meat/muscle before it is cooked, it will hang and begin to separate from itself. I found this interesting, because you can also see the muscle structure and how it intertwines. It is also interesting to think how they would flex, extend, and contract. I wonder how holder peoples muscles look like in comparison to babies or even athletes vs couch potatoes.

Midterm

Before starting Life Drawing I, I was some what confident in my ability to portray the human form. Not so much the shell form- I knew that would be my biggest challenge. However, I knew that I needed this class to really learn the structures and reasons for shapes and contours. I think when I use to draw the figure, I was more concerned on the form based on the skeletal structure. Sure muscles were there, but it didn't click that they were how the curves and tones underneath the skin came from. I always hated cross contour drawings because I like to scribble my way through ideas and when I have to be smooth and follow shapes, it's frustrating. But, I'm getting better and starting not to dread them! So far, the thing that LD has helped me with the most, is to slow down my scribbling and to think about my process. The most I want from this class is to feel accurate when drawing figures.




Oh man, I sure love midterms this semester.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenzieowens/
Here are my drawings so far in Life Drawing 1.
I have a few more to add, including a photo of my ManiKen (Louis)-He wasn't 'ready' to be photographed when I was the other day....

Muscles

Between 5 hour drawings and clay molding, I do believe I am building some mean muscles... somewhere.

Just now I was thinking, how is muscle built/maintained. Why do muscles grow? How do they grow? Is it a chemical reaction or something else? I'm no body builder but I am curious of what it takes to make lots of muscles and how some people seem to be without any extra bulk.

I felt stubborn to drawing the shell at first. But once I sit down, I just go and try to get things right the first time. Or fixable. Sometimes I just want to lay the charcoal on the side and shade in order quickly show curves and depth. However, I haven't felt the need to for a while.... I wonder if I can anymore.

Trickland

I have not been on a field trip since middle school, so it felt awkward sitting on a bus full of people I hardly knew. Regardless, I have been out and about visiting and touring my share of museums recently. Not once while I was out on those adventures, was I able to sit down and really force myself to think deeply about a given piece.
At the Walker in Minneapolis, I walked into a large salon-style room full of 90 paintings. It had paintings that reached the ceiling with benches on in the center with binoculars to see the highest paintings. Although the room had giant paintings, I chose a rather small one to study called, Trickland by Michael Borremans, 2002.
Standing farther back from the work, it looks highly detailed and like it was painted with smooth and realistic craftsmanship. However, it is very choppy and busy in strokes up close. Almost like a gesture drawing. The piece is very dark in color around the outter edge and only lightens up slightly from the shadows. The details such as the eyes and delicate noses are deep shadows. The figures look like children all seated and playing with a mock farmland, but it is adults-old women, farmers, mothers.... all placing their hands down on what seems to be a model of a country side.
When I looked at the painting, I felt drawn to it because on how the figures-although not highly detailed, were painted with detail to human proportions.

Torso

The "Maniken"s we are using to create clay muscles are pretty awesome. However, it's a new medium for me. It is so great to have to learn how to work with my own muscles that have been trained to function certain ways-for me it's to learn how to go from drawing to molding clay. The muscles in a humans hands are so beautiful. Under the skin, there are so many delicate muscles and tendons all connecting and weaving in order to allow the hands to work for their purposes.
Currently we are building muscle for the torso and seeing where everyone has muscles underneath fat and curves of skin. It is interesting to be able to locate the sternum on everyone, but underneath that point is is different for each person.

She Sells Seashells

In class we have these great seashells. The task for this weekend has been to figure out where they came from, what different kinds there are, why they are the shapes they are with what patterns.
I learned that seashells are the external skeleton for water life animals under the mollusk category.
My shell is part of the Queen Conch family (or so I think). Other names are the Eustrombus gigas, previously known as Strombus gigas. The animals that live inside are very big snails basically that are edible for humans and other meat eatin' animals. The reason there is such a large slanted opening in the side, is for the snails very large leg. Most of it's organs are on the outside, so they need a very hard shell to protect it from harm. All of the limbs that extend out of the shell are regenerate-able. The lines and knicks are made from the places were they live, which according to wikipedia is in sandy and seaweedy meadows underwater between the Gulf of Mexico and South America. The prongs that stick out of the top help the mollusk rotate itself when it has fallen upside down, and somewhat protect it from predators.
At first, I wasn't insane about drawing my shell for 2 hours. But I believe we have become friends since.

Anatomy Coloring Book

While learning about anatomical terms it reminded me of my favorite coloring book. I laugh to myself to think of medical students whipping out their colored pencils and returning to their elementary skills of coloring inside the lines.
Although coloring in the different parts of the body in this hefty may seem childish, I learned so much. I also spent HOURS working on not coloring in the wrong parts. If you'd like a deeper understanding, I would recommend either purchasing, borrowing(good luck getting it out of any owner's hand since they're about $30-40 a piece), or simply photo copying sections out for yourself.
Anatomy Coloring Book.... My grown up coloring fix.

Contour Drawings

(please be patient-my camera's card reader is not wanting to do it's job)

Contour drawings are always something I enjoy. It was new to me to have to go so slowly. However, it made sure that I was able to see all of the details. Details that I would have never seen before.
Blind contours are a whole other story. It was harder than ever to focus on any areas, with a drawing infront of me you can see the negative space and the exact placement of everything. With a blind contour everything is blank; including your own mind at times....

In my sketch you can see the body is detached. however, there is clearly feet, head, hands, shoulders.

Getting More Human...

Well, hello. My name is Kenzie Owens.

If there was a way to lay down all the cards on a table with labels that could correctly describe a person entirely with words and possibly illustrations, I'd be all over that. However, I've yet to find them outside of my daily horoscope.

I love anatomy. The way the human body functions is a topic that never fails to interest me. Everything from hair growth to body decay[don't eat lunch and try to learn about those processes], I positively gorge on. I would be a surgeon, doctor, nurse, PT... if I had the mathematical/science skills that I lack. Thankfully, God gave me a few other skills to work with.

Usually this blog is about packaging. I focused on boxing and printing and protection of technology. The blog's original name was Human Packaging, mostly to be something personal and ironic. However, I'm currently now using this blog for my Life Drawing 1 course. It makes the blog's title even more ironic, and idk if I can keep it...We'll have to see.

If you haven't read the book Stiff by Mary Roach, I strongly recommend it for those with a strong stomach. It gets into the 'deep tissue' of how the body works/doesn't work, and the way it deteriorates. Along with enough sarcastic humor to make Hugh Laurie satisfied.