Back to School

School has started, I have moved enough of my art supplies into my daughter’s old bedroom to be able to call it a “studio”, and it’s time to think about what I want and need to learn in my “art school at home”.

So I sat down at the computer and tried to draw up a curriculum. Usually a few bulleted lists and a bit of copying, pasting and blatant stealing will organize my thoughts on a subject, but this time I went around in circles and got nowhere. So I grabbed a sheet of paper, a pen, and a cup of coffee, sat in my studio (I love that word! ) and started brain-dumping. The result is at right. It’s been added to and changed since I scanned it, and as you can see, it’s far from a nicely organized bulleted list! But it worked.

I realized that there are three main areas I want to focus on at this point – drawing, painting, and art history. Each area includes a lot of topics, and obviously they will overlap to a degree, but it will give me a framework to structure my art time. And I’m adding one additional category – challenge. Two of my kids earned black belts in martial arts, and one of their instructors always told them to “do something that scares you every single day.” It’s great advice, but I’ll start smaller with one or two things that scare me a month!

Drawing

• Perspective – I understand the basics of perspective, of course, but I think a more formal study of it will be helpful. I picked up a couple of books at work yesterday (one of the perks of working at a library is that it’s easy to find books on almost anything!) and will create a workbook on perspective as I work through them.
• Broadstroke – I think I could easily get hooked on this technique! 
• People – I had good intentions over the summer, but they didn’t get carried over into action. So – at least 4 days a week of 60 second gestures from FaceFlasher (the javascript slideshow I created based on this) and from PoseManiacs

Painting

• Colour charts – I’ve done several, but need to be more systematic in order to really learn what my paints will do.
• Brushwork – A large part of my problems with oil painting is that I can’t get the paint to do what I want! Ironically, I’ve taken three oil painting classes and they’ve never covered this. The first was an introductory oils class that should have taught brushwork, but the instructor doesn’t work in oil and encouraged an purely experimental approach. It was fun, but we didn’t actually learn much. The second was a glazing class, which I loved, but it focused exclusively on one method. The third was supposed to be a general intermediate oils class, but we spent all 8 weeks on one still life using a glazing different technique. So I’ve never been taught how to paint wet on wet, or with a knife, or how to paint loosely or make fine lines, all of which would be helpful. I’ll be using the book Brushwork Essentials, and whatever else I can find to work on this.

Art History

• Chapters 1 to 10 in The Story of Art. This will give me an overview up to the beginning of the Renaissance.  Later I will want to look at these earlier periods in more detail, but for now a quick introduction will do.
• My longer term goal here is to work my way through The Story of Art by the end of the year, which should give me a solid overview, then to focus on a period or artist for more detailed study. One of the first of these in-depth studies will be 16th century Rome, to prepare myself for an upcoming exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada next summer: From Raphael to the Carracci: The Art of Papal Rome

Challenge

• One thing that scares me is showing my art to others, and this is something I really want to work on getting over. Participating in last month’s Virtual Sketch Date was a big step for me, and I got so many wonderfully encouraging comments on my entry. I will participate again this month, and try to produce a finished piece rather than the quick sketches I did last time. 
• At least once before the end of the month, I will go out sketching in public.