So we're 5 weeks into our first 10 week term. Wow! I just realized we're at the halfway mark! So I guess it's a fitting weekend to post my first real update on back-to-school life. For anyone who doesn't know, I'm taking 4 classes: Intro to Natural Science Illustration (hard), Field Sketching (fun), Information Graphics (very interesting); and a seminar - Special Topics in Science Illustration. But don't get me wrong -- despite my little lables, all of them are fun and terribly interesting and each has it's difficulties as well.
I have 3 wonderful instructors that will be with me for the duration of the program: Ann Caudle (program director), Jenny Keller, and Amadeo Bachar (he's a past graduate of the program). Ann is teaching the "Intro" class, Jenny is teaching the sketching class and the seminar, and Amadeo is teaching the graphics class.
Fortunately, I already posted my first creative graphics assignment in the previous post, so you can see it below (I say "creative" because I'm leaving out the totally awesome graphs I learned how to trace in my first assignment, and by awesome, I mean as boring as any other graph you've ever seen before). I probably won't be posting much of anything from the field sketching class (unless I'm really inspired to scan and share my sketches with you - you can see the sketchbook when I come home), but I will be posting almost all of the work I do in the Intro to Natural Science Illustration class - it'll be the most interesting stuff to share this term.
Anyway, today is about catching you up on the pieces I've recently finished for the Intro class, and here is the first one:
African Gazelle horns, graphite
Above you will see the first, and only, fully graphite piece we are doing for the program. I've drawn these horns from life (nearly everything we do the first term has to be from direct observation, so no drawing from photos). I found these horns at the UC Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History. The program I'm in used to be at UCSC until it moved, last year, to CSU Monterey Bay. Past students of the program used to be able to borrow items from the museum and they were nice enough to continue that relationship despite our having moved to CSUMB. So I get to borrow lots of great stuff while I'm up here, and during our first visit to the UCSC campus, these horns caught my eye... This was a particularly fun drawing because I got to use lots of cool new techniques I'd never tried before. Prior to starting this drawing, we created grids on plexiglass for accurate transfer of observed objects, and the really awesome thing is that when you draw with a grid, you need to block your binocular vision, and that means wearing an eye-patch! So I did the preliminary sketch for this drawing while wearing an eye-patch... I felt very cool. :) Here's what my set up looked like while drawing:
My second assignment was more of an exercise. In learning how to use pen and ink, we were tasked with drawing a single object four times and inking it in four different styles: outline, stipple, parallel hatching, and cross hatching:
Fremontodendron (Flannel Bush) in ink
My favorite method was the stipple (top right) though my classmates and instructor each had their own preferences. It's probably a good thing you can't see the bottom two very close up -- let's just say I need practice in mark making with hatching. I wasn't too worried about it though because botanicals are by far my favorite subject and they are most commonly rendered in outline and stipple, so I'm good as far as that goes. :)
Right now we are working on a much more involved stipple project that I hope to share with you next week, but I need to actually draw it before I can share it with you (it's due Tuesday). I'm illustrating a Checkered skipper specimen that I borrowed from the UCSC Museum of Natural history... so much to do in so little time and so many dots ahead of me this weekend.
That reminds me, I need to get to work. :)
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