Art - Drawing / Painting. Nature vs Nurture

[lynn]

I'll have to look into this, cheers. I'd just like to see if i can actually go from woeful to just horrible.

The exercises were by Betty Edwards, who also posted some before/after examples from her own students on her website... We simply used her book back then, not sure whether you can find some of it also online /on youtube, in case you're interested. It doesn't really help to develop your own style, but it's a good starting point and then you could go for drawing techniques according to your own preference (and not draw like the style Betty Edwards developed in the 70s) after that.

[meatburger]

The exercises were by Betty Edwards

Thanks Lynn! I've found her book online but i might even buy it for good old Betty's sake. I'd like to imagine her buying a nice box of tea bags or something with my money.

[Eliza Thomason]

The exercises were by Betty Edwards, who also posted some before/after examples from her own students on her website... We simply used her book back then, not sure whether you can find some of it also online /on youtube, in case you're interested. It doesn't really help to develop your own style, but it's a good starting point and then you could go for drawing techniques according to your own preference (and not draw like the style Betty Edwards developed in the 70s) after that.

I have always loved to draw and paint, and I think it has to do with delighting in visual perception, particularly form and color. Like it's a kind of puzzle I like to stick with until I figure it out, visualizing something in my mind, making what is on paper be like how I think it should be in my head, and you just stick at it until it manifests how you visualized it. When you get there it is so rewarding, like putting the last pieces of a big puzzle in place. I think it is like some people love the puzzle of a musical piece - they will just tune into the sounds of the instrument, and in what the hear in their mind as to how it should go, or the feel, mood or sound of what they want to sing and how it should sound, and they want to get in that "space" in their mind and stick with it until what they hear in their mind can be heard aloud. Others like to figure out how a thing works: lets take this apart until the whole system makes sense. Or how to perform an athletic activity exactly as one visualizes it.

I teach art; at this point I'm restarting my career after time off. I love Betty Edwards and relate very strongly to her philosophy and have designed lessons around her methodology since student teaching [a favorite is right from her Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain book: "We all draw Ivan" (upside-down)]. I love teaching very young children draw-what-you-see methods, and seeing their delight in surprising themselves and others with what they can do. I wish I had time to post some of their work, which I cherish... I have posted it here on 16t before but I forgot where it is.

Anyway, I am reading school website's announcements of covid plans for the jobs i am applying for because we are all wondering what will happen in the fall. Its crazy. I need to visualize in my mind how I will pull it off in the various suggested scenarios because I need to sound convincing that I can do it in an interview. One thing I am thinking is that if we have to pass out individual, un-shareable supplies for each child in an entire school, with art budgets what they have sunk to - a dollar or two per child for the year in many districts - and you can't give out much more than a pencil and a stck f white paper in everyone's "individual packs" of art supplies supplies for the school year.

So the classic debate about school art programs (at least among art teachers) is always "depth vs. breadth" issue - a lot of art mediums/subjects/project-types vs. in-depth concentration of one thing? The vast majority of us lean towards breadth, both because it is what people expect of the art program, but also because when you have 600 students, breadth is the natural approach to hitting on all the differing varied interests. To do this takes tons of management of time and materials to cover a wide ground there. It's really quite a feat. But covid restrictions restrict breadth as a viable option. So it's got to be depth. So jsut in recent days it hit on me - I can go back to drawing lessons I love! I could do this all year and it would be something they enjoy returning to week after week. So it makes this restriction more of an opportunity than a challenge. (Which I need. This past year (art teacher for two schools, huge class load) was so challenging - pretty much morning to night 7 days a week.)