Schedule 4A

Yeah, that took long enough.



And we start off with some gestures. Funny, I managed to stick four in a row--I guess because they were all standing up this time.



Exercise 8: Memory Drawing

"The model is asked to take three poses successively, holding each for about half a minute, and then to step down from the stand so that he cannot be seen. During the next minute, make gesture drawings of the three poses in any order that occurs to you."

"At first you may find yourself, like many other students, starting blankly at an equally blank paper. Draw something. Make some kind of lines whether you have any memory of the poses or not. Then try again."

This one definitely needs practice.



Another modeled drawing. My water cup. Well...a picture of my water cup--I don't drink from paper. What's amusing is that you can see the writing on the other side of the cup paper. "What is it?" you ask? It's the list of techs from Phantasy Star 2.



I, by mistake, took the second set of gestures exercises at thirty seconds per pose. Oops. Oh well, it was a nice change in practice. I really like the picture of the jumping man. You don't know which one the jumping man is? Then I'm not telling you.



And a modeled drawing of an arm. Not my arm. My buddy Matt's arm. He was eating something mushy looking, but I didn't draw that.

Schedule 3E

"Do not take anything for granted."

Wise words, my man, wise words.

"Nothing is a mere detail."

Even better words.



The modeled drawing. Model it, Joshua, model it. Started with the volume controller for my speakers. Crash and burn.



Honestly, I feel like I missed a step, somewhere. I assure you that that drawing does not accurately represent the model.



So I decided, again, to go with something that seemed simpler. Like...my hand. Again. Hey, it's quite available. I'm pretty sure I don't like these modeled drawings. But I haven't been very skillful with clay. Unlike my friend Edryanne. Low, Wai Chi, you're being plugged.



And more gestures.

Schedule 3D

Good afternoon, boys and girls. My name's Mr. Nicolaides, but you may call me Mr. Nick. I'm going to be your teacher, today.

Yay. Another schedule three days in the doing. I spent three hours yesterday playing Phantasy Star. I got halfway through the game and quit, read through a walkthrough for the rest of it, and watched the ending online. The game was so boring that it encouraged me to study Japanese. When entertainment is so bad that rote learning is more enjoyable... Which is why I don't watch television.

Did you know that the healing items in the game were burgers and colas? That's what the world's been coming to, ladies and gentlemen.

This time the exercise is kind of a combination of weight and cross contour. Pretty interesting. He suggested a piece of wooden molding; so, I picked the stuff lining the entrance of the inside of my room.



Started out feeling like an ink jet printer. Ihhh. No thanks. So I did it my way the second time. What felt good. Probably not what he wanted, but at least it didn't irritate me.



You know, I think I'm finally starting to get the feel of these gesture exercises that Kimon's been trying to convey. I think last night was the first night since the first day that I've enjoyed doing them. This web log half started as a joke and a whim...but I think I'm actually getting into this, now.

Schedule 3C

I've got pieces of April, but it's a morning in May.



"Do not worry now about the shape. Let it be vague."

That amused me when I read that, because I thought of my friend, Rachel Mah.

So Nick tells me he wants me to draw like a three year old girl drawing an apple. I drew Godzilla when I was three, with water colors, and I started with the outline, not the core. Maybe it's because I was a boy. That liked carnage. For old Nick's sake, I shall try to be like a girl, today. A girl that likes apples. Well, at least I like apples, so I'm already halfway there. Golden Delicious is my favorite variety (that is, as far as my simple apple horizon has thus far stretched).



She got up. She was a big woman. BIG woman. Her name was Bertha. Bertha Butt. She was one of the Butt sisters. He didn't care.

Schedule 3B

"When the page turns too slowly, Cheat Engine."

Took myself a week reprieve. Felt good. Didn't study, didn't draw, didn't work out. Played (and beat) some video games. Because I could.

Funny, I just looked up reprieve to find out exactly what it meant. "To delay the impending punishment or sentence of." While funny, it's not quite accurate. I thought I was being clever. Oh well. It should read, "Took myself a week break." Rest doesn't quite work, even though it does.



Gesture exercise from seven days ago. That's as far as I got, that day. Plus a few more, today. They're gestures, what more can I say. Nick said to pick out the "good ones". Granted, there are several singles that I tend to like better on a given page, but they're mixed in with ones that I find to be the least skillful. So, I've been grabbing what I consider an average of the day's work. You know, just FYI and all that.



Got some exciting weight exercises, today. Nick said to alternate between drawing clouds and rocks. I know, right? Ultra stimulation. Trying to put my head around it. I know clouds look fluffy, but has anyone ever stood underneath rain? All that was momentarily floating around hundreds of feet in the air in the form of a cloud. I've thrown around a lot of rocks--even heavy rocks--but never a cloud. I intended to contrast, say, a ballerina and another body builder, but I'm trying to follow the instructions of this book to the best of my understanding.

Thinking about *understanding*... In the couple sentences before that, he was contrasting weight with volume, giving the example between a glass tube and a 1/2"d lead pipe--same space, different weight. Which sounds a lot like density, to me. What I'm getting at is "the best of my" part, though. That rock took up a lot less space than that cloud. So I probably didn't quite accomplish what I should have. Even though I was thinking about density when I was doing weight. Do bi do bi do biiii...

Schedule 3A

Something new! Weight. Form and weight.

"To me weight is the essence of form. And, since the life of a thing is its only real significance, I think of form as the living expression of weight."



Well it's not contour, but I don't think I'm much better at it. I decided that a body builder would also be useful for this exercise and found this handsome character at bodybuilding.com. And his name is Josh. And he's a believer. How much cooler can you get, right?



And more gestures. The power went out this afternoon, so I used DVD box covers for the first gesture exercise. Gorgeous, Scorpion King, and Gladiator are pictured.

Schedule 2E

So I didn't draw, yesterday. Took a break. I did make jelly, though. First time. Grape Blackberry. Culinary art is still art, right?



Supposedly, inanimate objects have gesture, too. Seems the gesture is in the making. So I turned my cups, framed my chairs, grew my plants. Sewed my wallet. Assembled my pencil. Yeehaw.

"It is far more important that your studies contain this comprehension of movement, of gesture, than that they contain any other single thing."

That's it. I'm now firmly convinced that he's a Gesturist.



A cross contour of a hand. It's supposed to be palm-down on a table, fingers spread apart. Started with the left side; stopped when my pencil fell of the paper (again).



More gestures. Trulies? Trulies. Even threw in another flash gesture exercise even though he didn't call for it. Posemaniacs.com has been fun, but I'm going to have to start mixing things up a bit because it's starting to get boring. I don't want to rush though this.



And the grand finale? A contour of a boob. Joking. It's a rose. I've been kissed by a rose on the gray. Ba ya ya, bada ba da da da, ba yaya.

Schedule 2D

"The key to the nature of a subject is its gesture. From it the other aspects of drawing proceed."

It's my guess that this guy really believes in gesture.



Don't you just love these arm cross contours? Your friendly neighborhood Joshua has to keep it simple with these, or he looses concentration. There's little more useless than a Joshua without concentration, boy and girls.



And...a fist. Of sorts. It's pretty discouraging when you feel the pencil drop off the paper.

"Josh, draw smaller."

No.