Random thoughts for my additional blog...

So far, I've drawn the CIEMAS bridge area looking down the stairs from Perkins and the Bryan Center, looking up at the ceiling by Reynolds Theater.

I wanted to do a chapel piece at some point, but I didn't feel like this week's drawing was the one for it. I want to leave the chapel maybe for the week we do surreal drawings because I think it would lend itself well to distortion, etc.

For this week's fiction drawing, I didn't really have a particular place in mind. Nothing was all that inspiring, and I hate drawing outside. Last time I drew outdoors, I was standing outside Perkins at dusk getting eaten by bugs. My skin reacts horribly to bug bites, so I still have the scars from the 11 bug bites I got in the space of 2.5 hours. People walking by also tend to stare at what you're doing on the sheet of paper. A common reaction is to look at my drawing first and then whip around to look at the real thing to see if they look alike.

I'm not a fan of people looking at my work when it's not yet finished, especially if they're standing over my shoulder giving me "corrections." A lot of people I know tend to do that, so at this point in the semester, I know to avoid them when I want to draw.

Back to the topic of my fiction drawing, I probably won't bother with the alligator. It takes a lot of time to get it right with the shape of the jaw and the texture of the skin, etc. If I'm going to lose points because it's not native to Durham, I'm obviously wasting my time.

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I have a running list of things to improve upon and/or Bill's previous comments:- Grid to make sure objects align the way they do in reality.- Keep your pencil point sharp.

- With still life, try not to set things right in the middle. Try going for more asymmetrical arrangements.

- Use your pencil to gauge relative sizes of objects in the scene you are drawing. Make sure the same ratios end up on your paper.

Some of Bill's more general comments toward the class:

- When you lay in value, make sure it's not descriptive unless you want it to be. We shouldn't see the direction of the pencil strokes within the value.

- If you want to crop a drawing, crop in such a way that it makes sense. Make it seem like a window.

- Always think about the foreground, midground, and background. Make sure there's something in each region. Don't end up with an empty midground, especially.

- Use your eraser as a drawing tool, not just as a corrective tool.

I'm excited for the surreal drawings we'll do during the last week. I really love seeing everyone's work. We all have such different styles and approaches to doing the same assignments. I learn a lot by looking at drawings other than my own. I think it would have been great if we had individual critiques every class period. We could just lay out the drawings we did for that week and just walk around the room looking at each drawing/critiquing as a class. The weekly feedback would have been really helpful.