Tuesday, July 15, 2014

A Long Awaited Entry... No More Excuses...

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Wow, well it has been a while! Yup I have been a little to busy to get to the blog as of late and my students gave me *#%^ about it. So I am going to attempt to catch up.
 


Here we go!

Since April (the last time I posted) I have implemented a social network for the class call “Figuratively Speaking Artwork” (instagram @figurativelyspeakingartwork). Although, this also keeps me quite busy, the one thing it does allow is an unbiased view of the students work as well as many inspirational submission from artists worldwide. The site allows communication from anywhere in the world and from several different ages as well. The overall goal is to create traffic to other social media sites such as Facebook, Blogger, and Twitter. All of, which is slowly starting to pick up steam. So my next endeavor will be to create a Facebook site that can help with stylization, conceptual design, compositional placements, and the overall aesthetics of figurative art. For now I just want the social sites to be focused on the human anatomy or “life drawing”, So that will be the goal.

Now, I want to talk about the class itself. Since April we have had several changes. We have lost some artists and gained others, so it has been bitter sweet. Carson long time monitor, friend, and crazy creative artist took a position she could not turn down. Although, she is happy we miss her laugh and wonderful fearless style. Also, Marsha another great artist left for her summer trip and some relaxation. So like I said some left and new artist have come in, we have Mathew, Marianne, Beau, Kathy, and Tom. All are unique and different to the life class some have honed skills others are growing rapidly.

 

We also have new models that shared their wonderful style with us. We were lucky enough to have William a real cowboy that shared stories as well as a rough look with a musical twist. We also had Hallie a beautiful woman who shows strength and love with poses. (images are below) These models as well as our staples were a wonderful change.


The changes allowed for a very strong and award winning show. The Figuratively Speaking art show was help in the larger gallery and I am proud to announce that the best in show was a student. Pat, a powerfully talented artist took BIS for her work that showed skill, compositional excellence and in my taste fearlessness. Others from the class placed as well.


Overall the class is my diamond it is what I look forward to every week. Even though there are times I am overly tired and drained, yet I would not trade it for the world. Life drawing is daunting and easy taught or learned. It takes practice and dedication and for that I am truly thankful to the entire artistic class that shares their talents and skills with me. 


A thought to draw by:
“The technical study of the body, while necessary to the artist, can result in stiff figures that look put together. This is typical of anatomy study that is not supported by real life study: the student ends up literally putting the body together from what they learned, rather than recreating it from what they observed. Yet what brings a human figure to life cannot be taught or put down in a chart. It is the energy in that figure – happy, rushed, sorrowful, still, childish, uncertain, comfy, exhausted – you can only "learn" it from life. I put "learn" in quotation marks because you must not expect to learn it with the mind (the way you might learn that the average distance between two eyes is equal to an eye). You learn to internalize it, to feel it in your body. If you can feel it in your body, it will make its way into your drawing and you don't have to think of how to do it. This is the key to expressive, lively drawing and it goes for non-human or even non-living subjects, too”

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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