Category: Lessons

Did I really say that??

Tuesdays are for drawing lessons. I teach a total of 5 classes. Before you say, “FIVE??” in great shock and awe, let me reassure you that this is nothing like what a school teacher does. The most I have in any class is 8 people (who all WANT to be there!), and all 8 never show up on the same day. One class has only 3, and another has only 1 (I missed you today, Adalaide!). If the one doesn’t appear, I go grocery shopping. Today in drawing lessons Bob brought the tiger on which he has been working very diligently for quite awhile. It is a challenging piece, as he is using a newspaper photo as his guide, and it is a little blurry. He is doing this drawing in colored pencil and often works at home. Bob tells me that he can’t draw very well, but despite this declaration, he has made a large number of beautiful pictures since beginning lessons in 2001. So I was looking at his tiger very carefully, thinking about ways to encourage him and help him progress. One part of the mane looked particularly well-done, and I told him so. He laughed out loud and said, “You did that part!” Sheesh. How embarrassing.

Here’s a look at another piece of what is coming on November 22. (trying to take my mind off what a doofus-y teacher I am!)

Eye-eye, Cap’n!

No lines, only blurs, smears and fuzzes. No outlines, only edges. No hard edges, only soft edges. Those are the main rules in drawing faces. (side rule – don’t photograph work under the fake colored lights at my drawing table!)

John Singer Sargeant was one of the greatest portrait artists to ever come from the United States. He has been quoted as saying, “A portrait is a picture of a person where the mouth is a little bit wrong”. So, in between teaching drawing classes today, guess what I will be working on?

A little bragging

Because I have this great new camera, I took it to drawing lessons yesterday to show off a little. Two of my students happened to finish and sign their pieces, so I showed them how to photograph their work and explained what it takes to get it to look right for the internet. Aren’t they good? The lion is called “Tawanda” and was done with a limited palette of colored pencils, a box of 24 colors by Staedtler-Mars with a neato triangular cushioned grip. The boots are untitled as of yet, and were done from the student’s photos. Outstanding work, people!!

Fast or Good?

His Other Car, graphite, framed 14×26, $450

If you are learning to draw, you get to decide which you want to be: fast or good? There are people who crank out drawings faster than I can instruct them on how to avoid difficulties. They end up with a stack of pictures that they hate in a few months time,.

There are people who spend an entire year on one drawing, and at the end of that year they have one picture they are quite proud of.

The end result is the same: both types of students have learned many new skills in drawing, both draw much better than when they began, and each is learning at his own speed.

So, if you have been drawing less than maybe 10 years, you get to decide if you want to be fast or good – me? I get to be both! (remember, I am talking about drawing here, not painting!)

new understanding

Today I continued to work on the oil painting of Blossom Peak as per suggestions, instructions and corrections from the man I will refer to as CC. He is not an artist, but he has a great eye and is able to articulate. He is doing for me what I do for my students – not letting me finish until it is the best it can be. Phew! This is frustrating! I do this to my students and they PAY me for this abuse! I have been wanting a teacher for 2-1/2 years who would help me in this manner. What’s more, he is free! (his words, not mine!) So, right now, all I can say about this painting is I QUIT. Maybe. Can’t quite hear the fat lady singing yet. (NO CC, don’t go getting all bowed up! It’s just a figure of speech!)

The Best Source

Do you remember being given art assignments in grammar school, high school, or even college? They were generally focused on ways to use different media, and somehow we were expected to be instinctively creative enough to come up with an idea to illustrate the teacher’s vague instructions. “Show transparency” “Design a container for air” “Make a self-portrait but don’t draw your face” (as if we could draw our own faces at that point!) Those assignments instantly caused the problem of WHAT to draw or paint or sculpt. Endless thumbing through magazines provided by the teacher only occasionally solved the problem of WHAT (never mind the copyright issues!) Now, I hear similar woes from my drawing students. “Oh no, I’m almost finished and I don’t know what to draw next!” I remember that awful feeling of lostness and a blank mind. I watch them struggle through the binder of (copyrighted, but explained) photos and my own envelope of photos to find an image to draw. Part of the struggle comes from something I tell everyone who draws with me: Pick something you LOVE because you will be staring at it for a long long time. How do you pick something you love from a pile of other people’s pictures?? Other people’s pictures represent other people’s experiences. (Reminds me of one of the many things I learned from That Shirley Who Can Do Anything. When she owned a store, she would never buy a product to sell unless she had “held it, smelled it and felt it”. Pretty hard to love a view or an item if we haven’t “held it, smelled it and felt it”!) The point is that the older we get, the more we experience, and it is precisely this experience that gives us the ideas! Now that I am pushing 50 with an ever-shorter stick, the ideas are overwhelming me! Everything I see, every place I go, ideas are flooding into my brain! Nothing in my life is exempt from consideration for a drawing or painting! (The only necessary filter is the consideration whether or not anyone else will like it, because if my art doesn’t sell, I will have to get a job.)

A Good Yarn – colored pencil – SOLD

Say what??

In drawing lessons, sometimes it is difficult to articulate my thoughts. A picture is worth a thousand words, and sometimes a thousand words still can’t explain the picture. Often, I can’t find the right word, so I will make one up. The funny part is that my students understand the meaning!

This morning a woman was working on some boulders but something wasn’t looking believable. The problem was that she had inadvertantly made potatoes and an oversized pinto bean! Once we had that figured out, she asked how to draw some grass behind the boulders. I was trying to keep her from making a lot of little lines all in a perfect row. The instructions came out, “You need to sort of bounce your clumpage along – that’s it, just horizontalize it a bit more”. She got it.

No potatoes allowed in my river!! The title of the piece is “Spring Run-off” and it is one of the few pieces I can’t bear to part with.

First things first

Washington Navels – graphite – 11×14 framed – $175

A man sent me some photos of his paintings and asked my opinion. It was unchanged from the last time he asked, which was unchanged from the previous time, which hadn’t changed since he quit drawing lessons to learn to paint!

My opinion is that one must learn to draw before learning to paint, IF one wants paintings to look believable. My point was not to badger him into returning to drawing lessons; it was to let him know that until he learned to draw accurately, his paintings would not be satisfying to him.

When I began painting, I chose subjects that were too difficult for my skill level. When I figured this out, I backed up to what I always tell my beginning drawing students: pick a simple single object, one with which you are already familiar. That object for me is oranges. (There is that series idea again!) At last count, I think I was on Oranges XXXIII. (for those of you in Rio Linda, that means number 33)

In no way do I mean to criticize this eager man who really really really wants to learn to paint! Au contraire – I understand him completely! When I was learning to knit, my attitude was “Scarves? We don’t need no stinkin’ scarves!!”, and my first project was a sweater. Not just a simple pullover, but a cardigan, complete with button bands and button holes! Needless to say, I am the proud owner of many weird sweaters. But, after 3 years of knitting, I now own quite a few not-so-weird ones also. So, one can probably learn to paint IF one is learning to see and understand shapes, proportions, perspective and values in the process.

And, the illustration above is not a simple single object. If a beginner chose this picture, I’d advise cropping it to a single orange with part of one leaf. Get the idea?

Learning to draw

For 14+ years I have been teaching people to draw. I tell them all “drawing is a skill, not a talent”. Some find reassurance in that; some feel disappointment. Then I liken it to typing – everyone can learn to type. Some type 25 wpm, and others hit 90 wpm. Those speedsters are the ones with talent, but all are typists.

Lots of people get the yen to paint, often when they are retired. However, most don’t understand that drawing comes before painting, sort of like grunting and pointing comes before public speaking. (not that i equate drawing with grunting, but hopefully you get my drift!)

Unless one can draw, one’s paintings will be weak. What I mean by this is that unless you can make your shapes believable, understand perspective, values (that means darks and lights) and can see proportions, your paintings will be exercises in frustration. (Then again, maybe you don’t care how they turn out!)

Some folks have taken lessons so long that I have become a habit to them. I tell them they don’t need lessons because they know how to draw. They tell me that unless they pay their $50 per month, they will not carve out time in their lives to draw.

Truthfully, I love these folks. I love my students – we become friends, comrades, buddies in the artworld. I show them my art and give them the freedom to tell me anything they think about it, good or bad. We speak truth to one another, and it is helpful and refreshing and sometimes, it can be hilarious! Drawing has to be fun, or we wouldn’t persist.