Day Two – Learning how to see
“The problems of drawing,” Brian reiterated, “are psychological.”
He then introduced us to a ViewFinder – which is designed to reduce the input of verbal information and help with the idea of composition, which is basically positive form and negative spaces in some pleasing arrangement. The object of the drawing is the “positive form” and anything around it is the “negative space,” or using the context to understand the subject. Emphasis on negative space, like words unspoken, tends to unify the drawing.
Our first exercise of the day was to draw our hands on a viewfinder and then pass our drawings forward to be hung in preparation for the daily discussion of our work. Of course, when I saw my hand up there again with the others, all I could do was compare and judge myself – unfavorably. But I did notice a few that were a bit worse than mine –progress from the day before, I suppose. Or maybe not.
When Brian reviewed my hand drawing he said, “You really get a sense of the delicacy of your touch.”
I was again stunned by how much my personality came through in my picture – and it was even clearer when lined up next to other drawings. It was amazing to see how distinct our drawings and therefore our points of view were. By the end of day two, the 8th grader and I had graphite on our faces.
Day Three - Perspective
Perspective: it’s all flat information. Drawing is essentially creating a two dimensional illusion of a three dimensional space.
One of the students asked Brian, “Is this what real artists do?” As if Brian wasn’t an artist. I was embarrassed for her. He was incredibly gracious. He went on to say that there are tons of misperceptions and misconceptions about art. Often, these are propagated by art historians. They seem to like to paint the picture, if you’ll forgive the pun, of a crazy artist.
He related that Van Gough taught himself to draw. Van Gogh drew almost exclusively for 2 years – he really wanted it. He also showed us a retrospective of Picasso’s drawings, who was taught to draw at a very young age by his father, to drive home the point that to be a great artist takes hard work and a solid grasp of the fundamentals as opposed to the often bandied word, “talent.” Picasso himself said, “I used to draw like Raphael, but it has taken me a whole lifetime to learn to draw like a child.”
To teach perspective, Brian pointed out that in architecture, lines below the horizon line will ascend up and lines above your horizon line are going to descend. For the doubters among us, he ushered us all into the hallway with our angle finders, pencils and viewfinders. It was illuminating – what you think is a straight line when looking at it, is actually angled when you put your pencil up to it.
The last exercise of the day was to choose an item of architectural interest and set about drawing it. I chose a window inside of the classroom and in the end wasn’t happy with my drawing. I felt frustrated and struggled with the details. In the immortal words of Eminem, I “guess that’s why they call it window pane.”
“This drawing,” Brian said, “is about power over space. You’re not creating the real thing. You can’t recreate it, you’re creating an illusion.”
When he reviewed my drawing he said I got the angles and perspective and commented that my drawing had “a mysterious quality.”
I learned that placing angled lines in your drawing, requires an intense amount of trust of yourself. Because, at first, it looks very wrong or doesn’t seem possible. But eventually you start to see. You gain perspective.
Day Four – Relationships
Brian began by talking about what the class is and isn’t. The class is about drawing a recognizable object and the qualifications of that. It’s not about Art with a capital A. It’s about teaching you the fundamentals of perception and from those you can run with it where you want to.
The exercise of the day was to draw a side profile portrait of a classmate. He explained that the human head often gives students the most trouble, but it requires constantly checking the relationships between the various parts of the face. Invariably, students never realize how large the head is in proportion to the eyes, nose and mouth because the eyes, nose and mouth get so much attention.
The exercise was difficult. Brian noted, “The left hemisphere says, ‘Drawing is supposed to be fun! And checking for relationships is not fun.’ But you have to do it and the more you practice, like anything, the easier it will be for you. It will start to feel natural.”
When many of us stumbled on the eyes, he added, “You can’t trust your eyes. Well, not so much your eyes but your brain gets in the way of your eyes – it mixes in symbols with which it is familiar.” In drawing, as in life, I was discovering.
We reviewed our work again at the end of the day. The personalities continued to pop off the pages. It was unconscious and unavoidable. I was starting to see that’s also what makes it art.
Day 5 – Putting it All Together
Brian opened Day 5 with “You’re now all ready to take drawing classes.” He then went on to describe how we could all practice – which is required for all this to come easier.
He emphasized “you can learn from misconceptions if you don’t get freaked out about them.” Starting over can be debilitating or demoralizing but I learned you can adjust stuff. In the end, he advised, “Whatever works is what you have to do to make things work.”
The final day’s assignment was to draw another self-portrait, pulling together all we had learned. Brian warned, “The difficulty is that you’ve being seeing yourself all your life,” but consoled, “the drawing you do today is simply going to be the drawing you do today.”
Here is my Day 5 Self-Portrait:
My self-portrait looked so painful to me – there was something in the eyes. Something I got right on the first day, too but my pencil marks on day five were so much darker, bolder – more confident.
During the final review discussion, one of the high school students commented, “Funny how I started off smug [day 1] and ended up looking tragic.” I could relate.
After I finished mine I went outside. The sun was shining for the first time that day and people were setting up tables for Off the Grid . I saw the Kara’s Cupcake van pull up and I got so excited. Then I flashed on a picture of myself at the age right before I stopped drawing, when I stopped pursuing art.
That child-like joy. I was in touch with it again and it was so good, it hurt.
Thank you for sharing this! I so wanna take a class now !
Inspiring – thank you for sharing your story.