At the Drawing Board

I am going to be doing a lot of drawing this semester, I think—and not just in Illustration.

I went to Illustration for the second time yesterday.  The first thing the teacher had us do was pick a partner and draw his/her face.  Ummm, yeah.  Actually I did tolerably well drawing a face, but it didn't exactly look like my partner.

Then we learned how to draw a ten-head figure.  Not a ten-headed figure. When you are drawing a human body you make the entire body the length of eight of that body's heads. Like this:

But when you are making a fashion illustration body—called a croquis (say "crow-key")—the body is the length of ten heads, with most of the abnormal elongation happening in the legs. So the croquis body is lengthened like this:



OK. Maybe this does look like a ten-headed figure.
But I am only illustrating the difference in height. ;-)

 So, anyway, I drew my first ten-head croquis yesterday, and I think she turned out pretty darn good-looking!

I think she's quite attractive (including the
censored areas), even if her legs are unnaturally
long.  And I think her face is pretty, especially
considering I only had 1 1/2 inches to draw it in.
My homework this week is to draw six more of these.

 After we drew our first croquis, we got to draw a face.  This is my face, with only half of her makeup done:

We weren't copying any picture—just
drawing freehand, based on correct proportions.

 I think I'm going to like my Illustration class after all.

And this morning in History of Costume we discussed Egyptian clothing then saw some really cool slides.  Then Janet gave us some pictures to examine and we had to design a day dress based on what we saw. 

This is my design:

The bodice is obviously designed for the leopard skin.
The waistband echoes the jewelled Egyptian collar.
The pleated skirt is a nod to Egyptian dress (I had originally
intended to make the skirt in cream or white —a la Egypt—
but black looked better.  She wears a gold wrist band and her pendant
is an Eye of Horus on a heavy gold chain.

Does it look more like a cocktail dress? Or is it a daytime dress?

Well, anyway, I'm two weeks into school, and I'm still liking it.  Yay me!

Here We Go Again!

The shopping is done.

The carpool is arranged.

School has started. 

Last Wednesday my Entheos kids went back to school, and today my Hunter High School kids went back to school. I think they're all pretty happy.  And I'm happy to have them out doing good things.

I started back last Wednesday, too.  My first class is the one I've been postponing and postponing: Fashion Illustration 1.  Well, I've been postponing a lot of classes that I am taking now, this semester. But I keep hearing about how worky Illustration is.  Still I'm signed up, I'm going, and I've bought $162 of art supplies for it. Wish me luck on this one!

I'm also taking Fashion History; the first class was Thursday morning and it looks really interesting.  Besides, it's taught by one of my very favorite teachers. I like Janet so much that she easily talked me into taking her 20th Century Fashion class (more fashion history).  I dropped Communications and swapped it for 20th Century—which looks like it will be lots more fun.

And I'm taking Alterations.  I have no problem building a piece of clothing from making the pattern to sewing the last button on, but taking a ready-made piece and tearing it apart and then rebuilding it is kind of terrifying to me.  It will be good to learn and know, but sounds like no fun. We'll see.

The bummer is that I've been dying to take Millinery (hat-making). It's usually taught on Wednesday afternoons, right when I'll be in Illustration—which is a required class (Millinery is not).  But this semester they moved Millinery to Monday afternoon—at the exact same time I'm in Alterations. I am sorely tempted to drop Alterations and take Millinery, but practical me thinks, "Come on! Which one will be more useful in the long run?"

>sigh<

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I'm sticking with Alterations.  I just hope I can fit Millinery in next semester.

The lineup, then, is
Monday: Alterations
Tuesday: 20th Century Fashion
Wednesday: Illustration
Thursday: History of Costume

Here I go again!

What I Did This Summer

School has started, and that usually means students have to write an essay on what they did this summer.  Except for me.  My teachers didn't even ask.

But here's what I did this summer:

We all worked at Camp Steiner, a boy scout camp. 
All along I had intended to take a picture of the whole family, wearing our Steiner staff uniforms, standing under this sign.  In the end, we just took a picture of the van under the sign.

We slept in a cabin. 
When it rained really hard for a long time, Rachel's bed got dripped on.

Kaylie shared a room with Bruce and me.

Every morning when I woke up, I saw this view out my window. And every morning for about the first four weeks I'd think it had snowed over night when I saw this.

Here's where we lived all summer.





Michael, Jason, Lindsey and Brandon slept in tents with other staffers.

We went boating . . .

. . . and shooting 

. . . and hiking, where we saw interesting and beautiful things.

leaves were changing color by the beginning of August

When this tree fell, it uprooted this rock . . .

. . . the rock is as tall as Rachel.

Jason does the limbo to get under this tree that had fallen across our trail.

Lookout Rock

Can you see the hidden critter?

We saw chipmunks, squirrels, marmots, mice, deer, moose, ravens—lots of birds—wild hamsters (at least that's what they looked like), rabbits, and some critter that swam the lake to catch a fish and then climbed to the top of a tall pine tree to hide from us.

We made new friends.
Carlos tries out his hammock in the dining hall.

Hallie ties Rachel up. Later they were all swinging
from the rafters—literally—on ropes they'd tied up
themselves using the only knots they knew . . .
slip-knots.

Christian taught the girls better knots to use
when swinging from the rafters.

The Nature Group and Rifle Team helps rope off the rifle range. Alex, Jamie, Michael, Ryan (North—there were four Ryans at camp), Spencer and "Pebbles"

We worked. Bruce teaches the scouts about rifle safety.

Lindsey stocks the Trading Post.

Michael and Carlos practice CPR.

We played.





Sometimes it rained . . .
 . . . hard!

We had milkshakes at Dick's Uinta Drive-In.

 



We saw Santa Claus.

When camp was over, we stopped to see the Provo River Falls on our way home.

Our family had a GREAT summer!