I've passed the midpoint of the drawing class that I'm leading and its gone better than I anticipated. The people are willing to put in the time to practice and I can see the theory starting to translate into the images that are being produced.
The most difficult thing to teach is the ability to observe. It comes with time and practice - usually years of it before the mind/eye/hand coordination works to the degree that you want. So I suggest a lot of sketching from life as 'homework' each week in addition to reinforcement of theory that we have covered in a particular session.
Teaching is said to sap creativity and it does to some degree - mostly from a time perspective. Preparing for the class each week involves demonostration drawings and consideration of how theory can be turned into practical application at a level easily understood by a beginner. But over the last few days I have been sketching and have started a new drawing of the 'Weeds' series. The first I created limited edition prints with, the second is about a third finished. There is something therapeutic about drawing in detail with negative drawing. I never liked it previously but now that I have a few of these drawings under my belt, I find that I throughly enjoy the process of creating the detail of them. Watch this space for a sneak preview.
Meanwhile, I drew this dagger today as part of a realism exercise. Its not exactly as I want it, but fairly close.
Technorati tags: art, drawing, weeds, negative drawing.\, teaching art, dagger
1 comment:
The drawing is impressive Jeanette and how fortunate your students are to have you as their teacher.
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