.it was an interesting but mildly anxiety-laden gift because although i was somewhat familiar with the book (i'd worked through a few exercises in a copy that my wife had), my formal art training ended in 5th grade. which is to say i haven't done art of any type in almost 40 years (assuming lining your car up in a parking space doesn't count). in the roughest artistic terms you could safely say that my abilities lie slightly above the stickmen-with-fingers category.
this wouldn't be that big a deal except pickles wants to work her way through the book with me as i go along. a problem because she is not merely a budding, but accomplished, artist. easily able to do things like oil paint realistic versions on chuck taylor sneakers or craft paper mache mermaids with their hearts hanging out "for fun."
pickles and i share exactly three traits: we're both human, we both speak english and we both have inferiority complexes that include thinking we're bad at art. in almost any other way you could imagine we're different -- much to our collective relief.
my pal louella suggested blogging our progress which is not only a good idea but also makes it easy for pickles and me to track each the progress as we go along.
i'm looking forward to the experiment. i like to push the boundaries of my thinking and ability occasionally, but this particular effort isn't going to be without a fair amount of self-loathing and pain.
This is awesome! That book -- isn't that the book where you have to turn the pictures upside down before you draw them?
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to see the results!
kind sir,
ReplyDeletemy apologies for not responding sooner ... everything posted since your comment has been from my hiptop and for some reason it doesn't acknowledge the captcha commands.
thanks for your enthusiastic feedback ... if only all my first attempts at everything were met with as much zeal and good will.
yes, it's the upside down book ... that is but one of a series of exercises ... the main point of that particular one being that if you don't recognize (or think you recognize) the image you're more likely just to copy the shape ... it's clear that one of the long-term goals of learning to see (and hence drawing what you see) is an emphasis on shape, form, shading and substance, not "to make a face, draw a round circle first" ... in fact, i'll be doing my first upside down drawing later tonight.
i've skipped around and looked ahead ... there's other stuff like proportion and scale and it's not all upside down (not even mostly), but it's in there, for sure.
i'm hopeful.
true "results" are gonna take awhile.
(your idiomatic use of english is spectacular, by the way.)
Back in the 7th grade my art class teacher used this book, or an earlier edition anyway. I think I've done every exercise in it at some point, so I can vouch for it.
ReplyDeleteI must say, that Reagan picture of yours is delightfully hideous to behold!
i've been fairly far removed from art from the "do it" point-of-view, but i get the impression that this is definitely the gold standard as far as a learning text goes.
ReplyDeletei'm surprised they'd hit you up with these general concepts in what americans would call the middle school years -- not because you couldn't *do* it but because they seems more far looking than the US school system would be. it certainly helped make a spectacular art base for your stuff.
so far i'm very intrigued by it all (for some reason the word "happy" doesn't seem right). i'm very curious both to see how far it goes and how long i play around with it after i'm done.
and let's not talk about reagan anymore, okay? i'm convinced that drawing someone from memory is hideously difficult, even if you're an accomplished artist, and in that sense it's sort-of a trick task. i'll give it another shot before i do my final "graduation" portrait -- whenever that is in the medium future.