The struggle is real!

As an instructor, I see a bit of a different angle of the art making process. 

Daily, I see many students going through the ups and down of art creation.

I am acutely aware when my students struggle often bringing the to the point or frustration. They want to quit, they sigh and make grimacing faces. Some need to step away, others are brought to tears and all over art. I see and feel the ups and downs. I hear sighs, see the lightbulb go off and find a lot of discards in the trash. 

Our inner voices tell us…

This is awesome

This is tricky

This is sh*t

I am sh*t

This might be ok

This is awesome

….and again the cycle continues

I understand the personal challenges and how monumental they are in that moment. I think most people think its going to be easy and they are all going to leave the classroom a master. Artists seem to be a lot harder on themselves while in the pursuit of perfection than most do in the rest of their lives. We all battle deep inner voices, fight with the material and techniques and try to cram into our memories new lesson information. 

At times it feels like its laughing right in our face, this is supposed to be fun, at least smile back.

Know that you are not alone, we all go through this. You can’t hold onto any one moment, in this dance. Whether you are the best artist in the world or the worst, the struggle continues. C’est la vie. In our artistic practice, the only constant is change because of this we are always having to move forward and grow. Growing in our art skills and vision on the drawing pad, canvas as well as within. The most important thing is to show up, stick with your practice and you will push through. Trust the “artistic method” and trust yourself. You can do it!

At Atelier Artista, we believe the best thing you can do for your art is invest in your education. Put in the time and practice and in the long term you will reach your goals.

New classes are listed and starting up in 3 weeks.

We also encourage you to drop in for figure drawing, we host three nights a week and have a brand new bulk buying option here:

https://www.atelierartista.com/product-page/10-drop-in-figure-sessions

Warm ups

Here are some of my daily early morning warm up sketches and the figure drawing I did of Sarabella on Wednesday night at Ateleir Artista. http://www.atelierartista.com

Bring in the new year with naked bodies....

We haven't missed a Wednesday evening since we opened, and we don't plan on it. Practice makes perfect after all. If you'd like to join us, c'mon down on Wednesday, we have Sarabella modelling for us again. Here's my sketches from the last session we did with her.

This year our first Wednesday evening figure drawing was with Neema. Here's what I drew with new charcoal on bamboo paper.

We also had a figure drawing and time management course for Studio C/Prospect, heres a video peek below.

Go here for more info: https://www.atelierartista.com/figure-drawing

On our way to the holidays

Lots has been going on as we careen toward the holidays. I'm excited for some time off but it wont really be off at all, my list just seems to be growing and growing but regular figure drawing is still happening. every Wednesday 7 -  10 pm at Atelier Artista. http://atelierartista.com

Marla came in for two Mondays evening sessions for private study with some Art friends.

I had a really off day with lots of interruptions and didn't manage to get out anything I was happy with.

We were very lucky to get to draw Jenn who is pregnant with twins another evening.

Last Wednesday Alexia came and posed for our regular Wednesday evening figure drawing session.

We have so much fun figure drawing here....

Liquid Imagination with Alexia Day

After a long day I was given the opportunity to participate in Mark Northcott's Liquid Imagination at Atelier Artista.  We did a lot of short poses and though I felt rusty and fatigued I was really glad I took part by the end of it.

"Window-shading" the sketched figure

Lately my figure drawing process has become window-shading. its a fast way, after a general lay in, to capture and render from head to toe. This time I didn't quite make it to the end and left the foot unfinished revealing my process. Essentially "window-shading" is an area by area method of working on the piece after the overall composition has been drawn in. Below is the one I did from the last figure drawing session at Atelier Artista.

If you'd like to join in the fun we draw from life every Wednesday night 7 - 10 pm at Atelier Artista located n the fourth floor of cSPACE!

Live String Quartet @ atelierartista

Take a look at Atelier Artista's regular Wednesday evening group. We were blessed by a pleasant treat, we had a live string quartet while our male model Devin did long pose. You can have a look and listen to the little iphone video I show below. Sorry viewers, no nude male model recorded here.

Here is another glimpse into the night. The sound was so much more than I could have anticipated. So much volume without amplification. Here is the drawing after the second sitting, I almost feel this is enough and I could have left it at that..........and then once the time has run out and the drawing has come to completion, after some help from my friends both in eyes and with hands :D

and below is another video with the sweet sounds of the string quartet for your enjoyment.

(Figure drawing+) Classes coming to an end

I had 3 of my classes at ACAd come to a close this week.

 In my drawing 1 class we tied up the semester by revisiting what we began with which is a self portrait project so that we could see what they had learned over the 10 weeks.

I managed to get in a bit of drawing time in of Melanin during the final figure drawing class on the last pose of the fall semester. The students had an opportunity to push their rendering in the long pose  below:

 Nice work, I can't wait to continue on next semester where we will delve deeper into the anatomy and discuss sub surface tissue and muscles.