How My Art Imitates My Life:
1) It's messy
2) It's loud
3) Swearing occurs more often than I'd like (sorry family!)
So today I had my first class of "intro to drawing" (hard to sneak onto facebook in this class). We started with a bunch of stills that we had to sketch in charcoal (not draw, sketch - I've learned today that there is a very big difference). Our teacher laid out a vase, a teapot, a cup, and a bowl, and would put them in a variety of positions. Each time we'd sketch them, he'd come around during the process and help us out, and then he'd change their position, we'd erase the charcoal, and start all over. Then he added a figurine, and then a plant (leaves are hard!!). We learned all about foreshortening and drawing what you see not what you think it looks like (apparently we're all inundated with laws about how the world works, and artists have to forget all of these... the only time I've had a teacher told me to forget instead of remember!).
I'm not sure I quite have the skills of grandma yet, the "visual lines" are really difficult for me to keep in my head while drawing - those are the lines between the separate pieces of the still, e.g. the line between the head and the teapot that shows you their relationship (upward diagonal, etc). So not only did I get charcoal ALL over my hands while my roommate Caitlin maintained perfectly clean hands (even where she was holding the charcoal wasn't gray!) but then my art teacher told me my art work was screaming when it should have been whispering. I tried to tell him my mom's spent the better part of 20 years trying to get me to whisper when I choose to shout (apparently the entire restaurant does not care about my very passionate views of the Harry Potter movies). Basically what he meant was that I was doing really dark strokes instead of light strokes, and as an amateur who will be making a lot of mistakes, it makes more sense to do light strokes. Whispering instead of shouting. If only I could.
I'm also pretty sure I've never cursed so much in such a short time span as when I got the foreshortening birthing pose of the wooden figurine. Yes, the birthing pose. We were all in a semicircle around the objects so everyone got a different view, but from where I was sitting the wooden guy was leaning back, knees bent, legs spread. Thank you teacher. I also learned that it's not a very flattering position, even for a skinny figurine.
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