This class was a bit different than I anticipated. As a working artist in the field, I had assumed I would be working on my own projects, rather than being taught how to draw the figure.

Originally, I had wanted to work on a project where I was focusing more on Trans people, and the beauty of their bodies in transition.

I also had dedicated my practice to only drawing and painting Black bodies in an effort to showcase both the traumas and beauty we hold within us as descendants of the enslaved.

Creatively I have been studying the processes of making Art for years, but I find it to be more fruitful when I have live models to work from for long sessions.

After attending this class I've grown a greater relationship with the animation assist on my IPad, without it I would have had to use photoshop and illustrator to complete these projects. However, Procreate is still my favorite app and software for illustrating, as I find it to be more user friendly than Adobe.

I also took away the concept of staying on model, but I find it to be more relevant when animating people or objects, as the imagery and motion become more seamless. It's also a lot easier when one has longer drawing sessions with posed models, rather than digital images of models.

While I don't think I'll be including work I've made in class in my permanent portfolio, I am grateful for the things I learned in making it and the other artists who weathered the storm with me in the process. Without the engagement with other students, this class would have been much more difficult for me.

Many of the tools we learned I have been using for years while working within my own style. I think now my interest is more about creating imagery and my own set of stills to work from as I draw and continue to make more work in the future.

During week 3, I focused on one of the figures I liked from the previous week and spent more time making them into an illustrative being. This figure was a bit more challenging for me as there was more foreshortening in the torso and parts of the body that are more pushed back in the field, while the legs are a bit larger and more exaggerated.

I focused on using shading and contour lines (something we didn’t really discuss too in-depth in class) to help myself achieve the perspective I was looking for.

For this week we focused on placing figures within an environment, while showing their body shift from one pose to the next.

This image was inspired by a small collection of poems and short stories inspired by Octavia Butler entitled Ina. The figure here represents a subject in one of the poems, this subject is emerging from the roots of the soil and taking shape into the form of her sexuality.

For this image I wanted to emphasize a more dreamlike perspective, so I decided not to use bold lines, after receiving criticism against it. While the image came out nicely, I prefer to define things within my own style of work.