I initially started with a painting-only subscription at Watts Atelier, but quickly realized that there was a wealth of good stuff in the drawing courses, and I wanted in! So I upgraded to get everything.
I’m not a novice at art, but at the same time I don’t want to be one of those Dunning-Kruger victims who says, “I know how to draw” (nose stuck up in the air) and then refuses to review the beginner drawing courses. I figured that there would be invariably be something new to me, and I was right.
But because time and money is limited, I decided to sort of “audit” the beginning drawing courses instead of formally taking the course and waiting for grades. (I won’t do this for everything, because the critiques are very valuable, but at the same time, time and money, and definitely I’ll need critiques in the more advanced courses.)
Another reason I really wanted to review the beginner drawing courses is because of their unique way of rendering with charcoal pencil. I have a “signature” drawing style that I like, but I don’t want to be one of these artists who gets super precious with that whole “BUT THAT’S MY STYLE” horse manure. No, “my style” isn’t going anywhere, but it’s not so fragile that I can’t learn something new. The classic Watts rendering style is gorgeous; why wouldn’t I want to learn it?
So, I started from scratch with the first fundamental drawing course. There’s a learning curve with the whole sharpening the charcoal pencil to a long, loooong tip, and holding it differently—it’s all new, and I haven’t mastered it by a long shot.
I’m currently mostly using the recommended Wolff’s carbon pencil (4B right now) and am enjoying it. I switched to smooth newsprint and am fiddling with learning how to hold the pencil in the recommended way and I’m sure I’m not “there” yet…but Mr Watts says it takes a lot of patience.
I followed along to the first course in drawing, where we drew cubes, spheres, etc, and learned some new stuff. As Mr Watts did his drawing in the video demos, I drew too. These examples were again using the dreaded rough newsprint (I was still waiting for my smooth newsprint to arrive in the mail).
And finally, some more Quicksketch drawings I did as I follow along to the streaming Quicksketch course that I’m auditing. I need to power through this class because I only have a week left before the videos are no longer available!
Anyway, I thought I’d post an update so y’all don’t think I’ve already bailed. I’m watching lots of videos, totally loving the classes, and excited for the future.
I am still following the painting classes, but got sidetracked (in a good way) with some painting studies using the new techniques I learned. Mr Watts encourages a lot of repetition, repetition, repetition, and that’s what I was doing!
Overall, I am very thrilled with this online atelier!
