CALARTS: TIPS TO HELP IMPROVE YOUR OBSERVATIONAL ARTWORK

Countdown 50 days to go be for the portfolio deadline for CalArts

I attended a drop-in life drawing class on Saturday, at the Prince's Drawing School. The school is near in Old Street Station, London. The problem was that the class was crammed packed. Since the only available space was right under the crotch of the nude male model, I stayed at the back of the class. Fortunately for me, most people left in the afternoon.  This gave me ample opportunity to view the nude male model from every possible angle.

I didn’t produce some of my best drawings, maybe I was conscience of other people around me and the fact everyone’s peeking at everyone work; so perhaps I wasn’t feeling too relaxed. NB: I was peeking at other people’s work too. Their work was fantastic.

I realised that no two pieces of artwork is the same or even remotely similar. So for CalArts to say that they want us to be unqiue or be you is the easy part.  All I need to make sure of, is to be the best possible me that I can be.  I just need the courage to stand up and shine.

There was a bonus as I learnt how to  make a bamboo pen. Also teacher gave me useful guidelines on how I can improve my artwork in general.

Tips that can be applied to help improve your artwork:

• Try and be critical about your artwork

I was told to be always critical of my own drawings.I needed to question what worked and what didn’t.  Step back and observe the subject and critical evaluate your own artwork.  Is the form and porportion accurate? Does the line and tone accurately reflect the mood?

• Think about the visual story:

The teacher kept telling the class about the visual story and he said  ‘…imagine that one day your paintings will be hanging on a wall, you need to think about what you want your paintings or drawing to say to the viewer……’

• Think about the relationship of the subject with other objects.

I’ve been advised that I needed to show the relationship between the subject i.e the model and the object i.e the sofa.OOOO…..KKKKK….. This I really didn’t get.The nude dude was just lying on the sofa; I really don’t understand what alternative relationship the nude dude can have with the sofa?Any suggestions?

The teacher also mentioned my lack of attention to the background, in terms of mood, and accuracy.This has been duly noted and I would be thinking more about the mood and details within the background.

• Composition.

Generally I’ve been using the two thirds rule, used in photography to give my artwork some sort of order. The magic ‘triangle’ used by the masters can be also used to make artwork atheistically pleasing. Composition is really important as it enhances the mood and reinforces the visual story of your artwork.

Overall, the teacher commented on how some of my drawings looked loose and how others looked solid. According to him, I needed to combine the two styles together. I gave it a go and the result looked reasonable.

 

I stayed the entire day and produced numerous drawing, but unfortunately only one drawing was worthy to be added to the portfolio. The teacher was excited about the composition, and the story of the drawing. I do think I may need to add some sort of colour to the final drawing.

This class made me critical of the other two life drawings in my portfolio. There was something fundamental wrong with ‘Emily holding a sword and pretending to be dead’ drawing; namely a dead person wouldn’t grip the sword so tightly. Also for the life drawing with ‘Loreta stabs Joseph’ Loreta’s entire body language just feels wrong.

 

This is a disaster because it means that I now only have ONE quality drawing for my portfolio. S**T.

For anyone thinking about attending a quality life drawing classes, I would highly recommend it.