Planes of the Head session 4

A little more planar work,,, inserting polygonal modifiers with increasing frequency where it needs the detail, staying with simple planes where most effective.

The Larynx

Today's ecorche class was sculpting and visualizing the volume of the larynx- often neglected in the drawing of the neck.

From Wikipedia:
Sound is generated in the larynx, and that is where pitch and volume are manipulated. The strength of expiration from the lungs also contributes to loudness.^[4]
Fine manipulation of the larynx is used to generate a source sound with a particular fundamental frequency, or pitch. This source sound is altered as it travels through the vocal tract, configured differently based on the position of the tongue, lips, mouth, and pharynx. The process of altering a source sound as it passes through the filter of the vocal tract creates the many different vowel and consonant sounds of the world's languages as well as tone, certain realizations of stress and other types of linguistic prosody. The larynx also has a similar function as the lungs in creating pressure differences required for sound production; a constricted larynx can be raised or lowered affecting the volume of the oral cavity as necessary in glottalic consonants.
The vocal folds can be held close together (by adducting the arytenoid cartilages), so that they vibrate (see phonation). The muscles attached to the arytenoid cartilages control the degree of opening. Vocal fold length and tension can be controlled by rocking the thyroid cartilage forward and backward on the cricoid cartilage (either directly by contracting the cricothyroids or indirectly by changing the vertical position of the larynx), by manipulating the tension of the muscles within the vocal folds, and by moving the arytenoids forward or backward. This causes the pitch produced during phonation to rise or fall. In most males the vocal folds are longer and with a greater mass, producing a deeper pitch.
The vocal apparatus consists of two pairs of mucosal folds. These folds are false vocal folds (vestibular folds) and true vocal folds (folds). The false vocal folds are covered by respiratory epithelium, while the true vocal folds are covered by stratified squamous epithelium. The false vocal folds are not responsible for sound production, but rather for resonance. The exceptions to this are found in Tibetan Chant and Kargyraa, a style of Tuvan throat singing. Both make use of the false vocal folds to create an undertone. These false vocal folds do not contain muscle, while the true vocal folds do have skeletal muscle.
During swallowing, the backward motion of the tongue forces the epiglottis over the glottis' opening to prevent swallowed material from entering the larynx which leads to the lungs; the larynx is also pulled upwards to assist this process. Stimulation of the larynx by ingested matter produces a strong cough reflex to protect the lungs.

Artistic Anatomy Drawings

Here's a few demo drawings from the Artistic Anatomy class at the Woodstock School of Art
See more here:

Fragment of a Queen's lips

This is another fav.... this amazing broken fragment has a power that can only be classified as sublime.

Sleeping Eros

One of my favorites... the  bronze "Sleeping Eros" in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection.

Planes of the Head

From the Portrait in Clay class at the Woodstock School of Art. This is session 3 with working the planes from the live portrait... in this case it's Primo.

Frank Mason at the Canoe Access 1992

I've finally started to edit some of this content. From 1992, this video documents the Frank Mason landscape class, held in Stowe, Vermont during the month of June  from the 1960's through June of 2007. This episode takes place at the canoe access, a marshy area extending off of the Waterbury reservoir which was an amazingly picturesque place to paint.

Gunderson Plein Air 2012- Samuel Morse Estate

This is a video with impressions of this last Sunday's plein air  (peinture sur le motif ) class at the Samuel F.B. Morse estate "Locust Grove" in Poughkeepsie, New York. From Sunday's class...it's all about MASSING- only way you can really see the vortex. Piecing together the mosaic of a three dimensional ball of light against an atmosphereic progression seems ludicrious-a waste of time as it's easier to squint down , hold on to the masses, let brush pressure calibrate the changes of value and tone.

Planes of the Head session 2

Here is the Planes of the Head bust with a second round of refinement. It is apparent early on that the concept of the planes of the head can be very different for everyone. There are what could be referred to as basic planes of the head, simple plane and wedge shapes without too much detail that most all can agree on as being representative of the most basic polygonal planes. These examples are represented in earlier blog posts from the work of such artists as Andrew Loomis, George Bridgeman , and John Asaro. There are also certain areas of the skull, the zygomatic arch and the frontal bone above the eye sockets for example, where the basic structure can be interpreted differently among artists.The polygonal mutilpiers which define detail in a 3d shape can be dialed up or down with selective frequency ( like slider bars), across the surface of the head. Too much detail in an area can actually degrade the overall shape, so this becomes a kind of art for the artist to evaluate through their own lens of taste.

Frank Mason on Velasquez

Classic scenes of the maestro himself expounding on Velasquez and seventeenth century Spanish painting. It should be easy to recognize, for those who are fortunate to have been there, the friendly confines of Harry Burnham's barn, where on any given Saturday in June, the landscape class assembled for the weekly critique.
http://

www.keithgunderson.blogspot.com
/

Shattemuc Plein Air Paint Out & Auction 2012

This weekend we attended the Shattemuc Yacht Club's annual paint out event, held at the clubhouse marina in Ossinning  on the Hudson. Right across the river looms Hook mountain, which glowed reddish and as the morning mists burned off . A very nice motif.

Hudson Reverie 16" x 24" oil / linen

Tricep Posterior pronation

Here we have a posterior view of the brachium with emphasis on the Triceps and the first stages of Pronation.. Also we got a bit of info on the extensor tendons,( extensor digitorum, indicies, and policis longus)  and how their branchings  insert into the phalanges.