How to Draw

For about two years I went to one three-hour class each week at Mission: Renaissance art school, in Pasadena. Aside from my recent workshops with Joseph Todorovitch, that's the only training I've had.

When I started there my drawing skills were very limited. I could draw bushes or clouds with relative ease, but I used the ancient art of holding my paper up to a bright window and tracing if I needed something to actually look proportional. Come nightfall, I was screwed. I don't think there is any place that does a better job of teaching the fundamentals of drawing and painting as simply as Mission: Renaissance. I only wish they had a version of their school that was more conducive to full-time study. As perfect as the training is at Mission: Renaissance, it isn't a hard-core academy kind of place, and I'm learning that it takes a @#%load of practice to get REALLY good. At any rate, I'm glad I went there before jumping into figure painting. It's made things a lot smoother than it would've been otherwise!

If you're interested, here is a video from the founder, Larry Gluck, that will tell you how to draw. There is a lot more to be learned, otherwise they wouldn't have three drawing courses. But I think knowing just these couple of fundamentals can make a huge difference.

Oh, and just in case you get inspired: you can see where they're located, or check out their home-study courses at www.fineartclasses.com.

Wisconsin

Wisconsin - 16"x20" - conte on paper

I finished this drawing today, from a couple of photographs I took in Wisconsin awhile back. It was around 10 degrees out that day and my feet were freezing through my rubber rainboots. Unfortunately, being a Californian sometimes has the side effect of wearing shorts in December and not being prepared when shipped off to an actual Winter. But impending frostbite aside, I couldn't get enough of this dog. I took pictures until someone started staring at me suspiciously through the window and didn't respond to my smile and my "Is it OK if I take a picture of your dog?" hand gestures.

Workshop #2, Painting #1

Portrait Study by Yours Truly

I started my second Mr. Todorovitch painting workshop last night, and produced the above. I'm getting a bit tired of being perpetually dissatisfied with my work. The good thing is that I realized I actually am getting better. If I had produced the above portrait a year ago, for example, I'd be giving myself an almost crippling pat on the back (which is hard to do, with your own hand). But my standards always rise higher than my skills.

So... it would be really nice to just be happy with what I do, but the upshot is that I know I will continue getting better until I'm on my deathbed. Even then, I will probably be drawing my deathbed sheets and periodically setting down my pencil so I can shake my fist in frustration and curse the heavens in my little old lady voice, "Yes, I am finally as good as Bouguereau! But why can I not be BETTER than Bouguereau?!"

Joseph Todorovitch drawing workshop #1

So I decided a couple of days ago to do Joseph's drawing workshop as well as the painting one, and the first drawing class was last night. Here's what I did:

I'm pretty pleased, though I know that there is much to be improved. First painting class is in a couple of days, I'll post my work from that soon!

:-/

I don't have anything good to say at the moment. Here's a picture I took of two cute birds in my backyard. :)

San Francisco

I went up to San Francisco for the weekend, to see a traveling exhibit at the de Young museum called "The Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musee D'Orsay." Ironically, I walked by most of the actual impressionist pieces with only a slight pause in step. Aside from wanting a maple frosted donut with bacon on it that I had seen in AAA magazine (mission: accomplished), I went pretty much for the sole purpose of seeing this painting by William Bouguereau:

La Naissance de Venus (Birth of Venus), 1879, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

As I had suspected, it was completely stunning in person. Definitely my favorite that I've seen of his so far. There was another giant painting by him which was also incredible. The sad thing is that they didn't allow sketching, as they had so many people waiting to get in that they didn't want you to dawdle. For the same reason I wasn't really able to get my nose up against the paintings as much as I would've liked to, to really take it all in, as there were constantly new herds of people coming in. I waited about 2 hours to see the exhibit, so I only had about a half hour looking at paintings before I had to drive back home. But it was worth it anyway! Besides my main attraction, there were a few fantastic paintings that I didn't expect to see.

My friend and I took some Polaroids while we were up there and I had fun drawing on a couple of them.

I really need to be careful about what sunglasses I wear, as I tend to bear a rather startling resemblance to a young Roy Orbison. I've made peace with this fact, but sadly, this rules out pretty much every retro-cool type of sunglasses available right now. When I was little, my dad used to sing his song to me: "...anything you want, you got it. Anything you need, you got it!" Apparently that is true, unless what I want is to not look like Roy Orbison.

Ricky Colson

Ravi by Ricky Colson

I found this artist online yesterday through a series of fortunate events, and I like his artwork so much I can even forgive him for stealing my idea. If you look in one of my old sketchbooks you will see a series of undersized-people paintings which I planned out, and still intend on getting around to. Eventually. So Ricky Colson either drove from Texas to California and stole my sketchbook when I wasn't looking, or he is just less of a procrastinater than I am and acted on a good idea. The world will never know. Either way, he is one talented dude!*

Lucky for me every artist has a unique view of things, even if the concept is similar. This is why artists are amazing: Who else would think of drawing a guy sitting on a bar of soap? Not to mention then having the ability to then turn that idea into something so beautiful.

His website is here: rickycolson.com, and his blog is here: rickycolson.blogspot.com.

*Disclaimer for people with an impaired sense of humor: I am joking about him stealing my idea.