education

Starting with the drawing courses at Watts Atelier

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.

Doodles on ROUGH NEWSPRINT (which we are not supposed to use). Practicing the pencil strokes, and a little crappy makeshift invented head.

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.

Some more invented heads, quick sketches, trying to hold my pencil right, but still struggling. The head drawings are an example of my current drawing level—I haven’t taken the head drawing course with Watts yet (so anything I get wrong is not their fault!). I am looking forward to learning so much more and especially the Frank Reilly way of drawing!

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).

Practice, practice, practice!
Sketches I did as I followed along to the figure drawing Quicksketch streaming course. Heads are still too small, but I’m loving this Reilly method that they’re teaching!

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!

04/20/2023 by Art Training & Education Drawing Figure Drawing Rambling 0

First grading at Watts Atelier

Oh my gosh, I’m so geeky. I know I’ll calm down soon and become a slug about updating this blog. But it’s still all new to me, so here I am…posting again so soon.

Apparently, the best of the bunch, with the fewest problems.

I got graded on the first set of paintings from the Oil Fundamentals course. I got a score of 100%, but I think they are taking into account that we’re not experts here. (They say in the assignment notes that they are not expecting “mastery.”)

The portrait was okay (but with a few problems), and the other painting (a guy with the sombrero, which I will not show here) had more problems, but apparently not bad enough to ask me to do it again.

I LOVE IT!!!

You know what was so great about their brief critiques? THEY TOLD ME WHAT WAS WRONG. This can be in short supply in many art classes elsewhere. They just won’t tell you anything.

Yes, there were problems with the paintings! I expected that, and wanted to hear what they had to say. Oh, I’m sure they’re not telling me every flaw, but whatever is appropriate for whatever level I’m at.

I get so sick of art classes where the teachers are too hesitant or timid to tell difficult truths. I’m not talking about teachers being needlessly cruel, but saying nothing and allowing the student to continue as they are, without useful advice to help them improve—that is cruel.

(I understand why some teachers might choose to be close-lipped; often because other students in the past have pitched such a fit that it doesn’t seem worth the bother anymore. What an indictment on the students who complain in such a way.)

Anyway, suffice it to say I’m very happy to get this advice and look forward to more.

03/30/2023 by Art Training & Education Painting 0

Figure drawing is mandatory every day now

I was so, so chagrined when I discovered how much my figure drawing had slumped over the past few years.

March 2023 figure sketch from photo reference. The feet and hands lack detail, the pose is stiff, and I feel the waist might be too short. I assume it’s not too horrific, but yeah. It is what it is.

One of the things I’m eternally grateful for is that I developed a “figure drawing habit” early on in life. As a young artist, figures were always a weakness of mine. (I liked portraits, couldn’t do figures to save my life and anatomy was B-O-R-I-N-G.) When I first got to college at age 18, I decided to tackle all of that and started taking Life Drawing (also known as figure drawing). It was tough adjusting to live models instead of copying photos at first. (That’s something you’re not told—the big difference between drawing from life vs. photos.) But gradually things got better and I started to like figure drawing.

When I switched to an art school, I loved figure drawing enough that I made sure to take every class available that had anything to do with drawing from models. I also took anatomy classes and loved them. It was wonderful.

Then after art school, I continued taking either community college classes or just finding weekly artist figure drawing groups. This I did for years, off and on. Definitely there were some “off” years, but since I’m “of a certain age” (cough cough), it’s still added up to a lot of years.

With the plague and everything, I haven’t done figure drawing in several years, and it SHOWS. Oh, how I struggled. Some of my recent drawings had parts I liked, but usually the legs were where everything fell apart. This is not permanent; I know with practice and getting “warmed up” the drawings will improve. But still, it was disappointing to say the least.

I know the drawing I posted at the top of the page is not terrible…but, compared to the fluid, gorgeous drawings I see at Watts, I feel ashamed. But, I’m posting this drawing to show the “baseline,” meaning where I’m coming from, my current “level.” Not starting from zero, but with lots of room for improvement. Things I don’t even think are wrong are probably wrong.

Another thing I’m very keen to learn is anatomy. I loved it in art school, but it wasn’t a very popular subject and wasn’t made available for very long. I was lucky to study it for two semesters (I think?). It’s been years since I’ve formally studied anatomy, so I think it’s well past time for a refresher course!

Another quick figure sketch. Probably finished in 5-8 minutes? This is messy, but less egregious than some of the others. I’m posting this to document my figure drawing level pre-Watts atelier.
03/30/2023 by Drawing Figure Drawing 0

Quicksketch figure practice, week one exercises.

Without some artwork to show, this blog is just talk, talk talk!

So here is my practice art from the Quicksketch Figure Drawing course I’m taking from Watts Atelier.

Without some example art on this blog, it’s all just talk talk talk!

I’ve had some experience with figure drawing before, so I’m not starting from square one. Ages ago I had a teacher who was trying to introduce us to the Reilly method (a modified version of that is taught at Watts) and I don’t know why, but most of the students were confused. I don’t know if it was the teacher’s fault or not. (He was apparently a student of Frank Reilly back in the day!) I do remember bits and pieces of what he taught, but only a little bit of it “stuck.”

I’m so glad to have an opportunity to learn it “properly” this time, and so far I’m loving what I’m seeing. My drawing isn’t “there” yet. (I tend to make the legs too long—a stylization that many figure drawing classes encourage.) But it’s been great! I think I’m going to really benefit from this class!

03/26/2023 by Art Training & Education Drawing Figure Drawing 0

Oh, my sweet summer child, your MFA doesn’t prove that you’re a good artist

“I speak with authority, I have an MFA!” says someone with low art skills EVERY DARN DAY. I mean they don’t say that word-for-word, but that’s the gist. They proudly mention their degree as “proof” of something, but that’s not how it works. The artist’s actual body of work proves their expertise better than anything else. Mentioning one’s degree shouldn’t even be necessary; the quality of work should be doing all the talking!

I’m in the not-so-unique position of having attended a fancy ooh-la-la art school, while not having a degree in art. In retrospect, it was an advantage, because I got to choose who I wanted as my teacher and what I wanted to study, and fortunately I didn’t waste my time on “fluff” classes, but stuck to the fundamentals.

“Your portfolio is your degree” said one teacher at the fancy school, when I asked him if it really was okay to just get the schooling without the degree. And he has proven to be right.

No one changes their mind and suddenly wants to buy an artist’s work as soon as they find out they have an MFA. If the quality of the work grabs them, they want it. If it sucks, an MFA isn’t going to suddenly make it less sucky.

That’s why ateliers are on the rise. Because the good ones teach you the skills that many of the ooh-la-la colleges won’t, and for a lot less money.

For further reference, please read Noah Bradley’s “Don’t Go to Art School!”

03/26/2023 by Art Training & Education Drawing Painting Rambling 0
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