Lab 3: The Humerus is NOT a funny bone....or maybe just a little....

SO. with the busy life still unrelenting, I have decided to post pics before its TOO late from the third lab - explorations of the arm bones, and their muscles.

A couple comments...

Rotator cuffs are awesome! Who would have thought a succession of so many muscles allowed the arm's wide array of movement

The humerus is not a funny bone!
although its name is humerus...
For the 99.9% of people who have ever awkwardly bumped their elbow to have a "funny tingle"
(more accurately it's NOT funny it's painful! or maybe my arm is unusual...) has not actually bumped the "elbow" but the medial (inside) epicondyle (bump) of the humerus (upper arm bone). By bumbing this bony projection, the Ulnar nerve gets pinched and sends a strange tingling sensation through the arm. I guess for kids it's funny, and at least there is some truth behind the colloquial name for the bone!

BUT don't get confused! the "bony part of the elbow" that you rest on a table or scrape when you fall is not the humerus, but part of the Ulna (a forearm bone). (the fancy name for this projection is Olecranon process)

It's Been a LONG Time...

...since I last wrote. Lab got so busy and crazy that as I tried to stuff the last little pieces of knowledge into my brain the blog was left by the wayside. A quick overview of what was covered since I last wrote: Lab 3: The upper extremities (the arms!), Lab 4: The lower extremities (and legs!), and The midterm practicum. All three things huge events worthy of their own postings... I might have to give them due justice.

For now, a few reflections.
Into the first week of october and it seems that the course has covered everything I was artistically interested in. Although the muscles were a pain to memorize, it actually got fun tho think it all out:

"so if the Gastrocnemius (calf muscle) attaches to the back of the tibia"
(feeling behind my knee)
"and the calcaneous bone of the foot via the Achilles tendon"
(and feeling my heel)
"then if I contract it, my foot dorsiflexes!"
(and voila, pointed feet!)

muscle by muscle I would study. Rotating arms, twisting legs, moving my wrists this way and that to learn by doing and feeling the action.

Now that I KNOW what each muscle does (at least I hope I do!) I am even more excited to get back to figure drawing and have that realization
"ahh! flattening the hands contracts the extensor digitorum causing the slightest bump in the arm!" and see it on the model.

But now we move on, a new lab bright and early tomorrow... so I bid farewell to the beautiful anatomy of musculature and dive deeper into the cadaver's systems. Digestion. Excretion. Yay? While curious, they offer less obvious artistic applications. Hopefully this lab will produce some creative rederings of kidney lobes and intestine, yet I'm guessing they will lack the aesthetic beauty of the body's muscles bones and sinews.

I'll have to just get to drawing and see what happens, since formless complexity can also be beautiful (Pollack anyone?)