Art and Science

Art and science together is a fascinating area to explore. The word science is so broad though, and encompasses any topic or form of study you could ever want. Automatically my mind is drawn to psychology, and particularly how the brain interprets. I read the article “Interested Or Deceptively Flirting? Observers Of First Dates Can Predict Outcome” and it peaked my interest on how we deceive to get things. Even if we deceive in order to find someone we ultimately want trust with. There are other articles on Science News that I wanted to read about as well relating to this body language and false interest women in particular use. I’m not sure exactly how I want to express the duality of attitude and a deception.
Gary Parker and Lee Strobel have both written books on Evolution vs. Creation and this topic also interests me. The evidence involved for both sides, particularly that of the Universe and space could be developed into art. This is in a completely different area than the first idea, and both concepts are broad at the moment. But I’ll use either one of these as a starting point for developing the first project.
As far as artists go, I looked at Ron Pippin and Mark Dion. Ron works with old fashion mechanics and experimentation. He uses antique materials to make examination stations to look at bones or hold old test tubes. Mark is more into the natural sciences, seeing how man made objects and nature interact. Both artists are relatively unrelated to my interest in psychology, but I did look at both and enjoyed seeing what areas of science they explored and how they communicated their ideas.
Ron Pippin's work
Mark Dion's work

Drawing history and future

What drawings have been used for in the past:
Medical drawings
Educational drawings
Story telling
Memorialize events
Communication
Personal enjoyment
Represent, symbolize
Maps
Instructional diagrams
Blueprints

How are they used in the present:
Decoration
Protesting
Recording
Territory marking
Divide space

How we have encountered drawing as a viewer:
Realism can intimidate the less skilled artist. Inspiring us to try new ways of drawing, and expanding our styles. Relating your personal experiences to the drawings.

How have we experienced drawing as a maker of art:
Drawing really is the basis for most art processes, it is the experimental stage, and can become a final stage. It’s where artists begin. I believe as a maker of art, drawing is the most versatile medium artists have at their disposal.

When has drawing been most interesting to me:
After learning more about line quality and the different mediums for drawing (ei charcoal, ink, pencil) I saw drawing as having more potential to be different, not only in content and style, but also in medium.

What should drawing be for, how should it function:
Drawing should be for planning and as a final result. As it is functioning now in our world is exactly how it should be used. Drawing is fundamental to understanding art and it’s making. Without understanding the technical aspect of drawing its difficult to create anything the mind imagines.

Sweet Site

http://www.drawing-workshop.com/catalog/index.php

This site is actually really neat, they have free poses to draw of people in dynamic poses. I even noticed that they rotate to get different angles, though I don't know if all the images do this.

Found Drawings Discussion

The definition of drawing that we came up with was a moving point. Moving points create lines and a drawing is made up of a multiple variety of lines. An excellent drawing would have texture, a variety of line weight, an interesting composition, and an interesting use of space. When people in the group were taking pictures of found drawings, they looked for pattern, repetition and an interesting line quality. With this criteria, we picked the images that conformed to these ideas the closest.

Found Drawings

Found drawings can be found here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/megansart/

Reflection

So yea, it's the end of the semester and I didn't do much with the Blog. I'm terrible at doing online postings on a regular basis, I can't even check my email regularly. Aside from that I really enjoyed the semester aside from the blog.

I find it FANTASTIC being able to do actions and feel the bones beneath my skin and actually know what the bones look like, and how they connect and rotate in the joint. It's a little creepy, but my understanding of the movement has increased so much from the beginning of the year.

This semester I also finally started to understand the concept of drawing with your whole arm and not just the wrist or hand. Not only does it bring life to the drawing but it is SO much faster. At the start of my school education I was extremely meticulous in how I drew and needed to refine everything, but all the studios I've taken has taught me to be flexible and spontaneous. It has been so liberating to just draw and not erase.

I greatly look forward to next semester when I have more freedom to actually explore a specific area of study. I want to look in to expressions and how the start to form on the face, also I want to dabble in some extreme body movement studies, particularly in the area of dance. Then taking both these studies and merging them into a fantasy atmosphere.

Yea! I can't wait for next semester!

Model

Unfortunately I wasn't able to come in and finish the shading on this, but I think it turned out decent for a 3 hour ordeal.