Student, instructor, and guest comments on current exhibitions, studying at JCSA, and contemporary art.

Here are some of the drawings from the anatomy/dissection lab through our exciting collaboration with the Drexel University School of Medicine in Philadelphia this past fall.

Anatomical Cadaver Drawings, Marshal Jones

Life drawing, overlays, anatomy drawings - Liz Adams-Jones

Life drawings, overlays, anatomical drawings - Christopher LoPresti, Jayme del Rosario

Anatomical cadaver drawings, arm studies - Gus Storms

Figure drawing, overlays, anatomical studies - Whittnie Daniels, Geraldine Gilligan

Anatomical chart drawing, skull and anatomical cadaver drawings, arm study - Anatomy Instructor, Michael Grimaldi

Figure drawing and studies - Michael Grimaldi

The studies above analyze and cover not only anatomy but structural, tonal/compositional, surface topography and morphology as well as perspectival analyses.

To complement the work in the anatomy lab, we started our ecorché class this year with Stephen Perkins.

Ecorché - Sculpture Instructor, Stephen Perkins

Can’t wait until this following fall to continue our collaboration with the wonderful folks at Drexel School of Medicine! We’ll post more work in the fall concurrently with the class.

Today we learned how to make life masks! Seth Baldwin came up from Philadelphia and generously walked us through the process step-by-step. By the end of the day we were mixing, layering and making our own molds!

Tracy Banaszynski was our first victim – er, brave volunteer.

With Seth’s help, we ambitiously tried making an open-mouthed expression of Chad Fisher, including his neck and part of his shoulders and upper chest.

Here are the ecorche picts with Steve Perkins!

Practitioners of contemporary realism have limited the possibilities of their language by placing their greatest emphasis on technical issues. We will explore further possibilities of visual language as utilized in the past through the breakdown and examination of various successful paintings and plot a path beyond pure technical execution. Along this path, each individual artist may thrive in his or her specific manner of expression.

Tony Mastromatteo gave a great lecture and discussion about the importance of subject matter last night. It complemented the curriculum and discussions we have been having during the day program, both formally and informally. The founding instructors at Janus have always supported the exploration of personal subject matter and how things like composition play a role in making pictures. It was nice to meet like-minded artists. It’s too bad I only remembered to grab my camera after the discussion was over.

Here are some images of the drapery class we had with Michael Grimaldi.

Drapery Study Demo, Michael Grimaldi

Drapery Study Demo, close-up