I’m only one class in, but based on the course outline & the homework, I’m going to enjoy it. The teacher is fantastic & the other students are all really friendly. Plus it just feels good to go back to the basics.

A lot of what makes art successful is instinctive. Even absolute beginners without any previous art training know when one picture looks better than another one, regardless of whether or not they can pinpoint the exact reasons why. Our first class had us looking at famous paintings & paying attention to how each one followed the rules of composition, drawing attention to the most important part of the image by using the lightest lights, the darkest darks, lots of negative space, perspective lines & so on. That may sound like a bunch of gobbledygook, but once it’s pointed out to you, it’s impossible NOT to notice.

One of the funniest examples was looking at a slide of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus:

Clearly the woman in the middle of the image is the focal point of the painting. The class is asked to shout out how we know this – what techniques has Botticelli employed to make her the most important part of the painting, the place your eye returns to over & over again? Here’s a list:

• Value – she’s lighter than everything else
• Line – there are several lines pointing towards her (gestures in the arms, the gust of breath being blown towards her by the zephyr)
• Virtual Lines – all eyes are directed at her
• Negative space surrounding her
• Position – smack dab in the center
• the shell serves as a platform, contrasting strongly against the water

Pretty good for our first class, right? We only missed one thing, but it was a pretty major one. I couldn’t help burst out laughing when the teacher said it – she’s NAKED!

Our all female class was completely oblivious. Apparently this is not something often missed when there are males in the classroom. It never even occurred to me!

I had such a fantastic time at my art show on the weekend that it deserves its own post (with plenty of photos), but that will have to wait for another time because wouldn’t you know it – I’m dashing out the door to my art class. Last night they had me attempting to build a sculpture that represented a “stair experience” plus the words “liminial” and “vortex”. Oh, did I mention my only tools were cardboard, string & masking tape? Yeah. Not exactly taking that beauty home for display in the grand foyer! haha

Tonight we’ll be discussing the roots of modernism, which apparently involves a whole lot of French history. It’s an interesting class, but to say my knowledge of the French Revolution is rusty is putting it mildly. Au revoir!

The class I started last week, Issues in Contemporary Art, is completely hands-off, which I actually am excited about. I haven’t taken a book-learnin’ class in probably 10 years. I’ve done lots of painting and drawing courses, workshops etc., but where I just have to read? And write assignments? And possibly do a presentation IN FRONT OF THE CLASS? Exciting and nervous and makes me want to throw up a little bit in my mouth.

I am sooo not a public speaker. Even introducing myself as we go around the room makes my face and chest flush red. But I’m excited for the challenge and I’m thrilled that I will have homework that requires going to galleries and looking at art. How rad is that?? If I had the money I would absolutely go to university and get an art history degree. Or maybe marine biology so I could go out on dive expeditions to do scientific research. Or sociology, just ’cause I’ve always been interested in people and society and change.

Clearly I enjoy school. It would’ve been nice to have grown up in a wealthy family where I could take classes just because knowledge itself has value. I feel like that’s a luxury these days. Most people take the minimum amount of education they need to get hired in a specific field. How many times have you heard philosophy or liberal arts degrees referred to as “useless”?

I get it, I really do. We all need to put a roof over our heads and put food on the table, so coming out of college with whopping student loans makes no sense unless you’re going to be qualified for a well-paying job. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

This week my homework involves reading an excerpt from Ways of Seeing based on the BBC television series with John Berger. So far, so good. I loathe artspeak – that pretentious babble that the art community insists upon to make itself sound fabulously snobby and intelligent – so I was expecting to be a little irritated by this class. I think artspeak alienates a broader audience who would enjoy art a lot more if they didn’t feel stupid as they try to decipher self-important artist statements. There’s also a strong sense of bullshit, especially with abstract art. The average joe looks at a simple color block painting and thinks, “My kid could do that.” Trying to explain why it’s art (or why it’s good) with unintelligible jargon doesn’t help at all. It sounds like bullshit and I’m sure it feels like the artist is just trying to pull one over on a gullible buyer.

Barnett Newman – Voice of Fire

Why not explain in simple language that the reason the giant canvas painted with simple stripes isn’t as simple as your kid slapping paint on a roller because the layers of color were added so carefully and chosen just right so as to make the whole composition practically vibrate? That there are many layers of glaze that traps the light to make it reflect and bounce in just such a way that it gives the color incredible depth? That standing in front of it encourages people to *keep* standing in front of it, falling into it, meditating on the color? Explained like that I’m guessing you’re going to have a whole lot more non-art lovers remark with (at least), “Huh. I guess that is kind of cool.”

Guido Molinari - Sérielle bi-bleu

For the record, I should note that there is plenty of what I would consider “bad” art out there. Like music or film, art is highly subjective. And that’s fine. In the example above, I’m not trying to say that Joe should now like the abstract painting because he understands why art critics like it, but at least he should be given the chance to understand WHY art critics think the work is good.

Unfortunately, once the price tag associated with the work is taken into consideration, attempts at any kind of critical understanding stop in their tracks. A huge segment of people will never agree that a painting is worth $1.76 million dollars, but art pricing is a whole ‘nother topic that I’m going to back away from lest I never get my homework finished!

I’m going to be trying something new this weekend & selling my work at an art show hosted by a trendy children’s shop in Surrey, BC. This should be quite a different crowd than the craft shows I’ve done in the past & it’ll be interesting to see how my work is received. I don’t paint specifically for children in mind, though I am definitely influenced by the great storybooks I grew up reading. I’m in a weird sort of gray (pink?)  area between cute, but not quite the super child-friendly cute that kids are used to seeing. Should be a fun experiment anyway!

If you’re a local, here are all the details:

An eclectic mix of modern kids artworks will be featured during this fun day. Meet and mingle with select local artisans – this is an opportunity for you to purchase hand-made high quality unique items for your little loved ones playrooms, bedrooms or jewelry boxes.

Come and see the great works with children in mind from local artists:

Group Show

I have to finish up two more paintings for my group show next month at Raw Canvas Gallery here in Vancouver, plus I’ve been swamped with trying to get the word out about the show, like sending press releases, setting up a Facebook group & whatnot. I have one sort of finished, but I want to add a few more layers to give it more murky depth & I’m thinking about completely re-doing the girl’s hair. It’s bugging me.

Etsy Sales

The Etsy groups I belong to have both decided to do big promo sales at the same time with a big giveaway from the Etsy Canada Team and a sidewalk sale from my Etsy Twitter Team (more details to come).

Social Life

My art group meetings, this incredibly basic & dull parenting course we signed up for which has so far taught me nothing except that I’m already an exceedingly good parent (*snort*), my nephew’s birthday…why does it all hit at the same time? Even the fun stuff! The mister got tickets for the live re-broadcast of This American Life on Monday as a mother’s day gift for me. It was amazing. It was so cool to see how they cue up the quotes, add the music, Ira narrates…not what I pictured at all. Dan Savage’s story was a particular standout since it left both me & the mister weeping in our seats.

Of course we also had to see the new Star Trek on opening night. We took the boy & we all loved it across the board. Sylar as Spock? PERFECT. And surprisingly hot. Also surprising? It was really funny. Laugh out loud funny. Honestly, even if you’re not a Trekker, go see it. It’s a solid movie even without any back story or character history.

I did have to laugh at the whole ohhhhh! They replaced the original cast with young, sexy newcomers!!! What will Hollywood think of next? But…yeah. That’s Hollywood. Next up on our summer blockbuster roster? Transformers 2! I loved the first one so much I was catching flies the whole movie, my jaw wide open watching the shiny chrome twist & transform. So. Freaking. Cool. Hollywood movies are rarely better than my imagination, especially as a child, but Transformers completely blew my 9 year old mind out of the water.

That will have to be rectified today since I have class tonight and 3 homework assignments due. I have to a paint the same subject (an apple) in 3 completely different styles: using only a palette knife, thick sculptural brushstrokes and a blendy one. I feel like doing the blendy one first since that’s my obvious comfort zone, but I know how long I can spend adding more layers, adding more glaze…might be better off getting the tough ones out of the way.

Off to paint! Have a lovely day. =)

We’ve spent a good third of our class time introducing ourselves, then showing our work and talking about it.  For my ADD-adled brain, this is pure torture.  I want to learn!  I want to DO!  Spending 30 minutes talking about “What is a line?” makes me want to rip my hair out.

The course is basically led by the students and the instructor teaches by just answering our questions.  That might be good for advanced students who know what they’re doing and have specific questions about shading, perspective etc., but when you’re just starting out?  Most of the class doesn’t have any clue what to ask other than “So, how do we draw?”

The third class he redeemed himself though; we did an entire class on the human body.  He demonstrated the rules of splitting the body into eighths, we had a skeleton there to help us really visualize the body from the inside out plus we got to sketch from a live model – a nude live model.  I’m hardly a prude and quickly lost my self-consciousness at the whole situation, but it was a little startling right off the bat.  I caught myself a few times thinking about the fact that I was staring (I mean really STARING) at a naked woman’s butt.  No wonder so many people practice sketching with bowls of fruit!

Nudity aside, the class was enormously helpful for learning how to draw all sorts of different poses.  At one point the instructor got the model to stand up against the wall in front of a slide projector so he could project an image of a skeleton over her body.  Like an x-ray, it was a great learning experience to really see what’s going on inside our bodies.  By working from the inside out, I should (in theory) always be able to draw the human body in anatomically correct poses and positions.

It’s funny…as often as I draw and paint people, there are so many things I had simply never noticed by attempting to draw from memory.  Hands, for example; people constantly draw hands that are too small and make the entire picture look off.  Try this: hold your hand up in front of your face.  For the average person, their hand is the same size as their face.  That seems HUGE to me!  I think about all of the girls I paint and how BIG their faces are…never would I think to make their hands the same size.  Feet too – much bigger than you’d expect until you really start to LOOK.

Seeing where the shoulder joints are, where the hip joints are…all of those sort of angles now make sense when I’m sketching.  I don’t have to worry about if the position of my figure looks awkward or not because I’m not drawing it from the outside, from the skin; I’m now thinking about the skeleton and how the body really works.

It (almost) makes the first two classes worth it!

I drew this little flying girl last night using the new watercolor pencils (not crayons) and am thrilled with the way she turned out.  It’s so much easier to get in and work on the details with the pencils.  I’m wishing I had a few more colors though, like a brighter pink, a nice copper and maybe a brilliant purple.  Ah the never ending world of art supplies!

Her dress is left plain because next week I’m going to be learning how to collage paper dresses.  She looked too sad with a vacant white body, so I had to at least scribble in a bit of color.  Can’t wait to dig through my paper stash and pick out a new dress for her!

After adding a bit of water, seeing the page get wavy, then seeing my black pencil lines get smudgier & smudgier (especially into the white of the eyes, which never fully recovered) I was starting to get frustrated. I tried to go over all of my lines with an ultrafine point black Sharpie. This worked well in spots, then got caked with wax & would stop working. Wipe it off…scribble scribble…try again. SLOW GOING. It worked out in the end, but I had to really scrape hard and when you’re working on paper? Just not a good idea.

I was convinced I needed to get the real watercolor pencils, plus some good non-watercolor pencil crayons & picked those up today. I went for a walk with the boys and they wanted to pop into the comic book store. Since I had the dogs with me, I had to wait outside and what did I see 3 doors down? That I’d somehow never noticed before only a few blocks away from my house? A little art supply shop! I love supporting independent businesses and the owner was a sweetheart. They welcomed me inside (yes, even the dogs!), then charged me only $1 for a couple of pencils, a little more for the rest ($1.50?). I’ll definitely be going back there when I’m in a pinch.

Can’t wait to do some more practice sketches on paper and then – on wood!

My girl sketches have grown leaps & bounds since we started adding shading. I love how Suzi shows us exactly what she does to give her girls depth. It’s not a lot, just a little around the eyes and along the jawline into the cheek, but wow! They don’t look like flat, lifeless little girls anymore! Yay!!!

As I keep practicing different faces, hairstyles and gestures, I find myself running out of ideas, drawing a complete blank. I flipped through a bunch of fashion magazines the other day and cut out models with cool hair or interesting dresses that would work for my sketches. Maybe I’ll glue them right in my sketchbook so I can always flip back quickly when I run out of ideas.