Gabe's Blog: Playing Catch-Up
Hello friends! So as you can see, I have definitely missed quite a few blog posts. This entry will be addressing my absence, how the semester has been going, and finally a little portion about drawing and how I'm not good at it, but I'm steadily learning the techniques I am being taught.
Being an Art Student IS NOT EASY!
As an artist, I am always busy trying to create. As an art student, I am busy learning how to create. You would think that studying what I'm passionate about in college would mean that I have time to use my classes and projects to create what I want. However, that is not always the case. I wish my career were just endless bliss and photo classes (and free supplies), but there are prerequisites, formalities, classes I don't like (accompanied sometimes by professors who I don't like either) and other factors that influence my time management.
That's the reason I haven't been keeping up with my blog as much. This semester is really demanding. I'm taking two advanced photo classes. which I am actually having a SPECTACULAR time with. Both of them have helped me develop more conceptual art and dive into subject matter I'm interested in exploring and creating for years to come! My Art Core II class (which is why I created this blog) has been super interesting as well. It's basically like an introduction to art! We've been doing a little bit of everything. We started out by doing camera obscuras. pictured in my previous post. This led to us documenting our experiences with them through drawing. If you know me at all, you would know that I do not draw. I never have, and after I'm done with my lower level courses and art studio requirements I probably won't in the future either. I struggle with the drawing medium a lot for whatever reason, I'm just not great at it and that's OK. That being said, I have been learning and trying my best to draw, which has had a few satisfactory results, even if they're not perfect.
My First Drawings
So, I had to draw for my Core II class because we wanted to document our camera obscura findings. Obviously the most efficient way to do that was by drawing what we were looking at through our tubular camera. I compiled them all in small circular drawings so as to convey them as accurately as possible. They are rough sketches, but all in all, not the worst drawings I've done.
All of these are directly from my camera! Just quick small sketches to capture exactly what I was seeing, even if they're not always 100% accurate. This is probably one of the only times I've enjoyed drawing without the pressure of everyone else drawing so much better than me (which is pretty much how my Drawing class goes, but that might be for another blog entry).
After drawing what we saw through our tubular obscuras, we did a Claude Lens exercise. This is basically using a dark reflective surface (like your phone screen) to draw from, instead of drawing from the object directly. Since we did this close to Valentine's Day, I had cute little cupcakes at home from my partner's work party. I decided to draw that as one of my submissions and it was the cutest little thing ever!
I think I have grown a bit in the past month. I believe I am somewhat enjoying myself with these small, minimalist drawings.
And on that note, I hope you enjoyed my small "being an art student" insight.
I'll post again tomorrow, like the title implies, I have to "catch-up" on blog entries.
See you next time!
-Gabe <3