Studying and Observing
Ages ago, back in those weird years of 2020, I took an online illustration for beginners course with John English through Visual Arts Passage*. I was a bit worried about whether the course was for me because I could sort of draw (John had seen my drawings at the local life drawing sessions he organized) but I didn’t know diddly about painting. Still, I decided to take a chance and invest in the experience.
As it turn out, it was an excellent course. I learned a lot and I find my self returning to things I learned in it. One of the things I learned was that I new even less about painting than I thought I did. relatedly, drawing and painting are sister skills; one does not automatically lead to the other, even though learning one can provide insights into the other.
But there was a bunch of material in the class that I just wasn’t ready to absorb. At the time it was incredibly frustrating, Over time I’ve come to understand just how normal the situation was. Unless you’re working with a very perceptive and educationally skilled mentor, no art class is going to be tailored exactly to your needs and current skills. So when you take an art class, take copious notes, especially about things you don’t understand or don’t seem to entirely make sense. If an artist is mentioned, write down their name and look them up later as you review your notes. Not just because the notes will most likely help you remember the material, but also so that you can refer back later to the material you weren’t quite ready for.
That class I took back in 2020? Three years later I am still learning things from it. Partly that’s because I’m pretty haphazard about my art learning practice. I do this for fun, not to pay my bills. I have a limited amount of time to devote to it and I get easily distracted by artistic side quests, but whenever I have the time and inclination to dig into fundamentals practice, I have a long list of things that I know I need to work on. The I just have to pick one that fits into the materials I’m interested in working with at the time. Originally I thought I was paying quite a lot for that art class, but it’a proven to be quite a good value.
*This is not an advertisement for VAP, although I’d be happy to recommend them, but rather a way of thinking about how you approach art classes.
