Week 1 - Learning to let go

While none of the activities we explored this week were particularly new or foreign to me, they seemed somehow fresher, more relevant, than ever before.

The first exercise - blind contour drawings of our lovely little shells - is an exercise I've done many times in art classes throughout my education.  But with a subject so complex, and so dangerously familiar, it would be easy to become overwhelmed and start to draw what you know rather than what you see.  It might also be frustrating to not be able to see what you are working on.  However these limitations were not so restricting as they were liberating.
Not having/being able to look at my work allowed/forced me to focus more acutely on my shell.  I started to learn the rhythms of the spiny growths that make my shell unique and one of a kind.  I began to appreciate the seemingly infinite depth of the glossy cavern within the shell, once home to a living creature.  But most of all it simply made me look, and look hard, and really focus in ways I don't think I've ever focused when drawing from life.

My horizons were, however, broadened by the use of a nude model.  The gestural drawings were thoroughly enjoyable for me, in addition to being a learning experience.  It was good to let go of self-judgement and just think about the way lines on the body go together.  Without that need to create something that looks recognizably human (to the untrained eye) I found that I could focus more on my technique.  That is the speed of my strokes, the pressure of hand, re-learning to muse my whole body to draw.  It was still an exercise in self evaluation but it was more about the process than the product, which is an unusual and uncommon phenomenon in my experience.

Gesture 1 - Gesture 2 - Gesture 3 - Gesture/Cross Contour

At the close of the week I felt very thankful to be part of this class, but also to be ready to take this class.  Today I spoke to a woman (Ruth Thompson) who makes her living creating beautiful drawings and paintings.  But I was surprised by the things we had in common, despite the disparate levels of experience and education;  We both want to learn more about and be better at what we do respectively.  We both feel like we should be drawing more and always carry our sketchbooks and pencils, so we never have an excuse not to draw.  And we are both able to look at our own work and say, “This is good, but I can do better.”  It is that last quality – a sense of pride in our work but also the ability to step back and objectively look at our work and seek improvement from ourselves.

Last but not least, I learned that there is nothing better for your concentration than a good pair of shoes.