I have mixed feelings about drawing at Duke, as I do with most everything here. This was the class I was most nervous for.  Academics I knew, but I'd spent my life convincing myself that I don't have an artistic side.  And maybe I don't have a good artistic side, but I found a part of myself that found it very relaxing to sit quietly in a room with 12 other people and know that they were seeing the same thing - almost - as you, and yet were probably experiencing the moment quite differently.  I loved finding proportions (I have a geometric mind), but I'll never forget the moment I felt like I'd shaded something almost well!  I loved the class when we went outside and did a landscape, and the Nasher visit was as strange and fun and informative as I thought it would be.
So my mixed feelings don't come from the class.  But I went through a rough semester, got behind on my drawings, didn't have the energy to do them, and rarely went to class.  The weekly assignments became a source of stress, and that was when I really came to realize how much effort it takes to draw.  I don't mean because I was sick, just in general.  When you tell someone you're taking drawing, it sounds so light and fun and easy.  And it can be light and fun, but it's certainly not easy.  I have a whole new level of respects for artists of all sorts.  Even though I technically knew how hard the worked, how much they practiced, I generally used to admire their talent beyond anything else.  I still do, but I can barely imagine the heart and soul that goes into being really good.  So, interestingly, I think I will say that this class challenged me the most this semester.  I took English and Polisci and Econ, but those I had at least a passing familiarity with.  I knew the type of work that went into them.  But it was drawing, which sounds so innocuous, that gave me some of the most pleasant and simultaneously hardest memories of the year.
Thanks, Bill.

Thoughts on Drawing

By Lynea Bull

Drawing this semester has given me the opportunity to work art into my life a little more. These past 4 years at Duke haven't really allowed for me to keep up with art and playing music so it was really nice to get back into it. I was a little skeptical because I enjoy more imaginative/fantasy/cartoon drawings and still life has never been something I've enjoyed. I still don't enjoy still life drawings of inanimate objects. And I especially don't like backgrounds. I think that's mostly because I'm not used to taking so much time and putting so much effort into something that isn't in the foreground or the main figure in the drawing. However, I've learned that I am capable of drawing backgrounds for my drawings. The assignments where we worked in mid-ground and background images into the drawing really helped me out.

I've also learned that I'm not fond of using charcoal at all. I find it really messy and can't seem to figure out how to keep the rest of my drawing clean. I actively avoided it after the one assignment that required it. I might take a stab at it again, sometime this summer, but I don't really see myself getting too invested in using it.

Overall, I really enjoyed this semester. I was so happy to get to draw again. At times, especially when I was feeling the heat of a deadline, drawing for class felt like a chore. Most times, it was very enjoyable. It reminded me of what I used to like doing in high school and it made me really happy. There's a sense of fulfillment you can get from finishing a drawing and being satisfied with its outcome (in whole or even just little parts of the drawing), and I really missed that.

Thoughts on Drawing

Drawing throughout this semester was a scary, intimidating, experience but overall one that I am extremely grateful for. When I considered taking this class, I thought of how much I loved painting with acrylics on canvas. I hoped that some of that feeling would translate into drawing, and that some of my previous experience would as well.

After the first class I realized that while similar in some ways, drawing is a completely different sport. My messy brushstrokes translated into a more messy and dirty drawing. But it was in transitioning from one to another that I found so much joy in the actual struggle of learning a new skill this semester. One of my biggest challenges was making my work neat and my shading not overly expressive. Through doing this and consciously evaluating this skill on every piece, I think I vastly improved and more importantly, came to own my own style of dawning and shading. 

My favorite tool that I learned this semester was using negative space. While the negative space looked amazing when filled in with deep velvety charcoal, it was the skill set I gained in learning how objects related to one another that I used for the remainder of the semester. I was able to more accurately draw objects because the space between them became more accurate.

I sometimes felt intimidated by the skills my classmates possessed. Also, some weeks I was just off and wasn't able to produce a final drawing that I was 100% satisfied with. But I am unable to deny how much my classmates pushed me to be better, and how I began to understand throughout the semester the amount of time needed to dedicate to each piece in order to accomplish fully what I was capable of. I am excited to continue drawing in my sketchbook and this summer work on even bigger pieces at home. 

Thoughts on Drawing

       I started to get into drawing when I was around 12 years old. I didn't have much experience at the time and only did drawing because I took art classes throughout middle and high school. My drawing started to develop when I got into high school and had time to do more sketches in my free time. My drawing style then was very concise and I would spend more than a few weeks on a drawing. I had some pretty decent sketches but I spent most of my time doing paintings so I never really developed my drawing style. I really enjoyed taking this class because it forced my to draw every week and even if some of my drawings weren't as great as I thought they would be, from this class, I slowly learned how to create a good drawing during short period of time. It forced me to become more expressive in my and learn how to make various marks with a pencil that would say a lot in the drawing with very minimal effort and I even looked up some techniques of artists who know how to create a picture that told a lot with very minimal drawing marks. In my opinion, becoming a great artist requires patience and diligence by spending hours upon hours making art and learning from others how to make your art better each time. From this class, I learned from other artists and my peers how to better portray a narrative in my work My favorite aspect of the course was having a sketchbook and going to Duke gardens every week to sit down and sketch for an hour or two and forget about everything else that was happening in my life. Art is my form of zen where I forget about everything else and focus on the moment.

Drawing this Semester

This semester, I've learned a lot about drawing. I came in, barely able to draw a smiley face, and I found the first study drawings inordinately difficult. I remember finding a simple water bottle's curves too complicated initially, and i had to use a ruler to draw anything longer than a few inches. But as the semester went on, I progressed through shading, drawing through photos, until the final drawing which is a work I am proud of.

One thing I learned was how useful graphite was, and how fluid charcoal is. I found charcoal very difficult to use; though it produced gorgeous black shades, it was a medium that moved. I seem to be unnaturally clumsy when it comes to keeping my canvas clean, and so charcoal was difficult for me to use. This was especially clear in the empirical perspective drawing; i made the mistake of starting the shading with charcoal, which made the entire canvas messy. But I later found the use of 8B graphite pencils a great substitute for charcoal.

I also learned how difficult shading could be, but how it could immensely improve the drawing. My initial attempts at shading now look like a mess; my only prior exposure to art was photography, where shades are not of paramount importance. My initial attempts at shading tried to make entire surfaces the same shade, which i later realized was unrealistic. Accurate shading darkens in grades, which was something I learned when drawing a dumbell for the shading with eraser drawing

Overall, My drawing ability has dramatically improved this semester. I've enjoyed my journey into drawing somewhat competently, and had a great time

I'm really glad that I got to take this class and developed my drawing skills. As a fashion enthusiast, I've always found that drawing was a necessary skill that I had to learn in order to make mood boards, designs, styling and possibly go on to fashion school at some point. I've always been able to visualize my designs and styling, however, struggled with putting them on paper. This probably comes from the fact that I've never taken a drawing class. To be honest, I took this class hoping I could learn some drawing skills that I could apply to styling and fashion design, but was quite sad when I found the first assignments to be a lot different than I expected. I really struggled because I did not know how to shade or even add depth at all. Towards the end of the class, while working on these last drawings I noticed how much my drawing had improved and how much I had learned in the class and realized that all of these techniques that we learned, one by one, really improved my drawing skills as the weeks progressed, and that these are the foundations of drawing.

I really liked the last two drawings because I love being creative, and was able to do what I like which is style and really creating an image. I was really inspired and spent hours flipping through magazines, styling and picturing the image - where each model should be, what type of background to look for, ... I really wish we had gotten more of these types of assignments. I was really inspired by both of these drawings, but what I loved most about it was finally being able to put my ideas down on paper. So, thank you professor Fick for making me be able to do that.

Hopefully, if my academics permit I will be able to attend the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp which is why I've been working so hard. There, I will be able to take more drawing classes which will be geared specifically to styling and fashion design, and I will be able to develop my skills further.

All in all, I really enjoyed this class and am really happy I was able to learn so much from it.
Thanks gain and have a great summer professor Fick!

Reflections on Drawing

I have always loved making art. I've kept sketchbooks intermittently throughout my life and often turned to art in making gifts for friends and family. Until taking this class, though, I'd never really had any formal instruction in art (I took a couple art classes in high school, but they were really in the style of come-in-and-do-whatever-you-want).
As an engineering major here at Duke, I haven't gotten to take classes that allow me to express the artistic side of myself much at all. When I finally had an open class spot in my final semester, I excitedly filled it with a class that I knew I would fully enjoy.
I've really appreciated that this class dissected drawing and forced me to examine all aspects of the process from line to considering space to adding shading and value. I had never really considered these separate aspects of drawing before, and I think that I have seen significant improvements in my drawing abilities over this semester. At first this was somewhat difficult for me, especially when we were instructed not to use any shading (because shading is my favorite part of drawing), but looking back I can certainly see the value in considering and practicing each artistic element that is included in a drawing.