The study of anatomy can be accomplished a bit easier by looking at the human body and making associations with terms. Anatomy tracing helps with this tremendously, it also is training me to see the subtle forms under the skin and understand which bumps are which muscles, or bones, or tendons.
I did three anatomy tracing’s today and the first one above was done while following along with this proko.com video.
I actually thought this would be really easy, but I was surprised at how hard it was to tell where the muscles started or ended. The separation between muscles is not clear at all in some places so I had to have a couple anatomy books open to reference.
These next two attempts were done on my own without any help from Proko.com, and it was much harder. As you can see I didn’t finish either one, I’m very close to purchasing the anatomy course from Proko as I’m beginning to see the value of the information he is providing.
So after a hour and a half of anatomy study and tracing, I felt like I needed to get some drawing or painting in, but you could tell my heart wasn’t really into it because I painted this horrible orange in gouache. I just wasn’t focusing at all, and it shows.
I’m trying to think of the right words to express what is bothering me, and if I’m honest, I think I’d have to say the tone is self-defeating. I know this was written before my “positive communication” post and before our discussion of positive communication, but this might be one of those examples where negative language is used and may not be helpful, beneficial, or supportive.
You did a lot of work and focused a great deal of energy on the anatomy and muscle lesson. So, maybe it should go without saying that you were lacking the energy to put your whole focus into a painting. But none of your paintings should ever be labeled “terrible”. They are so much better than the painting you DIDN’T do…