Art, Again; Learning to Draw

ART, AGAIN; LEARNING TO DRAW

For several years i taught “FUN da MENTALS” of art at the college. For those of you not familiar with the Catch 22 labyrinth of community college curriculum  ART 101, or Fundamentals of Art is an art basics class that a student must take prior to taking any “required” art class on their degree path unless they can prove competency, or have taken at least two years of art in high school. Most of the students enrolled in this class have had little or no experience or exposure to the physical practice of art making. Most believe that they will go on to get a degree in computer graphics/design. But i digress, you have sixteen weeks to lay the ground work for a life time of art practice. Like i used to say in Art Appreciation, 30,000 years of Art History, 16 weeks, hmm….

The most common statement out  of the mouths of 101 students is, “But i can’t draw!” The proper response to that statement is - of course you can! It is a problem with a two part solution; 1. training, and refining the relationship between the hand and the eye of the student, and 2. practice. Of course the amount of practice drawing to achieve competence is quite beyond the scope of a 16 week art class. Most students in this class complain that one homework assignment a week is too much. You can begin to see the problem. The best you can do in this classroom situation is to make the class as non-threatening and as fun as possible. Hence, “FUN da MENTALS”. The line, the idea of mark making is the true fundamental building block of all art practice. One of the first drawing exercises i had my classes do was simply to make marks on a piece of paper while listening to short excerpts of different styles of music. After they get over the initial silliness that always accompanies this exercise i had them analyze  the shapes and relationships they saw in their scribbles. The ultimate end of this exercise was to develop a composition that exhibited unity, variety, positive and negative space. In other words creating a -good design - using only lines in all their limitless variety to create texture, gray scale value and other visual interest. This exercise has the additional benefit of introducing the concept of abstraction while building confidence in and experience in using the fundamental tools of pen, pencil and line prior to drawing still life, figure drawing or in plein air.

Now that i am ‘retired’ and i have time to explore all of the avenues of art making that i want to i try to do at least one of these drawings a week. I have always drawn in a surrealistic abstract style. The current series of black and white line drawings i see as an interesting series in and of themselves. They are part of the conscious downsizing of my life. One question that i need to be able to answer for myself is, can i be happy with just a pad of paper and drawing tools? Or do i need more stuff, more art making stuff to feel that my creative urge is properly fulfilled. I’ll let you know.

More later,

Morgainne