It's Over and I Conquered

Today was the last day of my drawing class at college.

6 weeks ago when this class started I thought there was no possible way that I could get through this course. The class was full of amazing artists and I....well....am not a great artist! The class was required for my degree and so I couldn't just drop it like I wanted to. All six weeks of this course have been very demanding of my time and I had to drop my hours at work drastically so I could get my assignments done on time. Plus, I've spent roughly $295.18 on the art supplies alone. Tackle on the cost of the book and the class tuition and you get about $547.93!!

Ouch!! Man I'm broke now!!

I spent an average of 4+ hours on each assignment. The earlier assignments were closer to 4 while my more recent assignments took about 12! I have done nothing but DRAW for the past 6 weeks....literally.

I was very excited to end this class because I could definitely take a break from drawing....for the rest of my life (which would be awesome but very unlikely).

However, as excited as I was to conquer this course, I was very sad to say good bye to the majority of my classmates. They've all been a blast to work with and I couldn't have asked for a better group of people. I don't think I have ever, EVER been surrounded by so many people (in a class room setting) that I was so comfortable with. I had a blast talking with these people and I feel like we all became one happy family.

Doug, Mr. Beautiful, (I've talked about him in previous posts...framed his work), bought this doughnut especially for me. He handed it to me and told me that I was a delight to have in the class and that the sparkles reminded him of my glowing and happy personality. The majority of the class agreed with Doug in telling me that the class wouldn't have been the same without me and that I brought a certain charm to the classes environment. ;-)

Our final project of the semester was to draw a Psychological Self-Portrait. The requirements were for us to construct a wearable hat that reflected our personalities and to wear it in our portrait. We could use any media (graphite, charcoal, conte crayon, ink etc.) that was introduced to us during the semester but the required size of the portrait was to be either 18"x48" or 24"x36".

Here's the Kitty Hat that I made for my portrait. I ended up getting a 90 on my hat construction. She took off some points since I used a real hat as my base. Apparently she wanted us to be more creative and construct the actual hat. Either way I'm proud of my cute, furry hat.

This was my first attempt at self portraiture. It was really late at night and I was really tired but I felt I needed the practice before I started the real thing. I was leaning on my hand which I chose not to draw. I also forgot my eraser and didn't feel like going to the other room to get it...so some of my features look a little odd.

This was my second attempt at self portraiture. I decided to add the hat (drawn by memory cause I was too lazy to run up the stairs to get it) and I think my features got a little better from the first sketch. There's not much of a likeness and I was really beginning to freak out over this assignment. I've NEVER been good at drawing people.

Here is the beginning of my outline for the final project. I was relieved that I was able to make my facial features a little more like they really are. I think it is a better likeness than the two preliminary sketches.

It's hard to see but this is more of the outline including my shoulders and upper torso.

*Drum Roll*

Are you ready to see the final and finished drawing?

Tah Dah!!!

My Psychological Self-Portriat

19"x50"

Graphite and Conte Crayon

Completed 7/11/2010

Total hours: 11-12

Here's a close up of the face!

I couldn't be happier with this assignment. It came out looking exactly the way I had pictured it in my mind. The class loved it and I received my last "Beautiful" critique on it. The teacher gave me a 93 on this drawing which I think is pretty impressive.

Overall I'm excited to be done with this class and I'm extremely proud of all the hard work I put into it and I think it will be all worth while in the end. However, I will miss my classmates very much!!