Just been thru a rather hectic week this week, mostly caused by having to do a presentation on the development for my anatomy final project. Here's a pic of the 1/2 sized maquette I made for the presentation. I only decided that I would forgo sleep and make it the day before class. I have several pages of pose studies I did as well, which I thought would be enough(and is the average amount my classmates presented), until I remembered the lecturer sort of hinted that he would like to see a maquette for my project as well. Hence had to do a bit of running around the various uni buildings getting wood sawn for the base and looking for tools to make it. That's one of the bad things about staying away from your family, you never have certain objects that you take for granted. For instance I needed a wire cutter,epoxy putty, a saw and hammer and nails for making the base. Luckily there's the traditional sculpture building a few blocks away where I could use those. I still bought the wood though, which turned out to be a 90 inch plank I had to drag across the city while people pointed and laughed. Thinking back, maybe I should have just been thick skinned and asked for used pieces of wood from the uni.

Yeah, I stuffed it with newspaper because I wanted to save clay and also to make it lighter. Carrying sculptures in the bus, with 3 other bags you need for class is definitely not fun. The maquette is 1/6 human size, the actual sculpture will be 1/3, roughly as high as you knee. Need to alter the pose a bit for the final sculpture, tends to still look static from certain angles.

And here's some pics of other sculptures I've been making.

My updated feet. Now with an inch high base! My sculpting lecturer said he would help me bake this, so I'll have to hollow out the sculpture to 1 inch thickness. Hopefully by then it will still be in the same shape and will not crack/break/disintegrate DX. Hopefully this can get into the Spring Show(the big exhibition the uni puts up once a year).

This is the second human figure I've been making in class. The first one was a female model, but we had to tear it down in the end so we could reuse the armature for this piece.(oh noes...hopefully I can get my hands on a pic of it from my classmate) Usually we'd have the same model come for 3 weeks consecutively and we have to make this 1/3 scale model of them. Still have some issues with the head-body size though.Oh gosh...6 hours X 3 classes...18 hours that the model just stands there. You could write a novel in your head in that amount of time.

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This edition's food pic. Cinnamon shortbread I baked for my birthday! (yeah...so sad, I baked my own birthday treat) I was worried it wouldn't hold together because it came out of the oven still soggy and crumbly, but it was alright after it cooled down. Could probably use more flour and cinnamon next time though. I gave myself an ulcer from eating this too much.
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While we are on the subject of sculptures...I dunno why, but sculpting sessions always, without exception, end with me in some degree of pain. Most of the time I get minor scratches from the wires inside the sculptures, but if I get new materials, like wood or clay, that means I will get muscle pain from having to transport them around. Other than that, I've gotten my shins blue-blacked from kneeling on a deformed stool, my thumb currently feels mildly poisoned by the epoxy putty, and my knuckles are getting super dried out from the clay (they use clay as an oil-removing product in facial care, don't they?)If all else fails, I still get a paper cut from, believe it or not, a flier posted on a classroom door.

Makes me want to stay as far away as possible from sawing machines, welding and metal casting, I tell you.

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'Tis the season for field trips for uni. Tomorrow, my sculpting class will be going to the Palace of the Legion of Honor art museum, so that's a happy little break for my fingers from oil sucking clay.

My anatomy class will be going for a cadaver workshop though, so guess who will not be joining. Luckily attendance is not compulsory. I really think the trip would benefit me, but no way I will muster up the guts it takes to go for it. Studying from textbooks for me, please. The most I think I will ever make myself do is to watch a dissection from video, or 'dissect' a chicken before cooking it for dinner.More than not wanting to see a dead body, I don't want to smell one.Even funerals are not as gruesome, but the deceased would of course be made to look nice and would be relatively fresh. I remember we were shown a video of a dissection in TOA once, I was one of those that looked away, but could hear my classmates' gasps and accidentally caught a few glimpses. Even then, I didn't want to eat meat that was still in the shape of body parts, for a few weeks, and it took the fun out of eating meat indefinitely (except kari kambing). That video put me on a mince-meat trend. If I go for the cadaver workshop, I'll probably go on a boiled-cabbage-and-congee trend.

I'm consoling myself by saying that anatomy textbooks and instructional videos are there for a reason, and a 2 hour dissection won't make too much of a difference to my understanding.

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OK, since I've had a good nap just now, I think I have some time to leave some thoughts on the life drawing sessions I've been having. I remember when me and my officemates were going to Melaka and we were in Jarold's car, he remarked about how sad it is that nude drawing in unavailable in Malaysia. I wonder if it's technically illegal? Will the khalwat people come and raid? Hmm...I think they would O_O (Or the would register for classes. lol. Oops, I didn't say that.)

Incidentally, I saw this when I was reading Persepolis. For those who don't know, it's a graphic novel about the author; a Middle Eastern girl growing up in Europe. Check it out if you haven't, I was entertained. They have an animation version of the book too.(btw, click the pic to enlarge)

But back to the main story, after going for the life drawing sessions here, I kind of wonder what the use of life drawing was back in Malaysia. People in tights, really all you get to observe is their line of movement(to a certain degree) and some basic blocks of mass. And maybe forelimbs if you were paying close enough attention. Then again, even here, not all models are created equal, right? Personally for me I get a bit disappointed when some models aren't being original about their poses, and you have like 5 similar poses of them in your sketchbook, and if you are unlucky, from the same angles as well.

And what's the deal about people's perception of the models? I think my roommate still thinks they are slutty, but I don't agree.Yes, I have seen one that looks slightly slutty and I think while standing there, in her head she's probably rehearsing the steps to her lap dance she has to do that evening, but other than that one person, everyone else is decent. Several of them are artist themselves, so I guess they get why what they are doing is important for the students. As for the atmosphere is a life drawing class, I guess it's almost the same thing as a Japanese bath house. It's kind of peaceful (at least it is for me, not so if you are the emo kid who keeps cursing your charcoal pencils as the reason for you bad drawings)as in everyone is appreciating human form, regardless of whether or not you are fat, or you boobs are too small, or saggy, or if you have spots on your body, or if you have pubic hair. Because humans are like that, we're not all fashion models, and it becomes an almost religious appreciation of nature. I think it's wabi-sabi.