I hope to use this blog to get into technique very soon, but before that, the question is why? So many classes, even at the college level refuse to teach the basics, they complain that knowing basics is stifling and destroys one’s ability and freedom to experiment and develop a style. A very famous university in California does not require drawing to get a Masters in Fine Art. Many an instructor has accused me of being too rigid when discussing technique, drawing and color theory.
My experience is so clear, at some point, after much experimenting and playing at art, the student gets very frustrated, opts to read a book, look at pictures and tries to emulate a style that they like, adding further frustration. They have in mind a place that they want to be, but have no idea of how to get there. This frustration leads to a lack in confidence , which first of all, results in this inability to drawing. Then the budding artist copies masters, which is why you see easels set up in museums, or finds a well-known and admired instructor to learn from and copies them. These are both important steps in developing a style, but should come AFTER the basics. Copying an admired artist is good in the short run, you learn by watching, studying their composition, palette, how they apply paint, but finding your style requires you to take what you learn and apply it, not continuing to copy. You have a natural ability to make images and describe them to the viewer, if you use someone else’s style you have disabled your own ability to speak through art.
Learning the basics is a rigorous experience, sometimes exhausting, requiring effort and practice. But as a process, when successful, brings substantial possibilities for your own self expression.
Ted Nuttall turned me on to a book by Richard Schmid, Alla Prima. I now keep this at my bedside and reread many parts of it. The section on drawing is of particular interest. Richard points out that even though drawing is a skill that must be learned, it isn’t like swimming or biking, where you can always regain the ability. Drawing is a mental discipline which takes continual practice and presence of mind.
As I have said before, in setting up relationships and giving everything a shape, “it is figuring out the hight and width of color shapes and fitting them together.” It helps to choose the biggest forms first, then dividing them into smaller shapes. A sound drawing is an absolute prerequisite to a good painting. I see my students excited about the composition and anxious to get it enlarged and on watercolor paper, so they cut corners in their drawing and lose control and power over the very thing that they were excited about. The importance of a good drawing is the lesson learned when the painting becomes a frustrating experience.
Every class begins with a review of drawing. Several still lifes are set up and I ask my students to go from one to the other setting up shapes and relating them to each other. By the end of the two and one half hour session I am happy to report that everyone feels stronger in this skill, as if they had been working out in a gym and asked to lift 100 pounds, did it with ease.
So why don’t we continue to draw every day, knowing the result? Why do we rely on a camera or computer to see for us? I haven”t got it for sure but I’m pretty convinced that it has to do with confidence and time. Time is a variable that we can control, allotting 30 minutes a day for a sketch, but the confidence is an abstract thing which wafts and wanes painfully while we try to experience this craft. Robert Henri in the Art Spirit refers to this as negligence of drawing. He points out that nature in all its forms, landscape, still life, human, will not reveal itself to the negligent . This is such a good way to experience this ability to draw. I hope this encourages you, as an artist, you are worth it.