Drawing Life 1
I’ll be teaching a class in drawing this fall and am thinking what I can teach.
Drawing is a way of seeing. By drawing what you see in front of you, what is usually called life drawing, you get to observe more carefully, to notice. You become a better observer and I think that observation probably extends beyond the sensory details of whatever is in front of you. There is detachment in observing and drawing and that practice of detachment is like the Buddhist practice—simply looking and watching. A very useful practice—in art and life.
But I’m most interested in drawing another way. In my own art life I rarely draw what I see in front of me. Instead I draw what comes to me through intuition. And it comes to me because I see art as a way to express my spirit. And that we’re all here to do that in one form or another.
As I never went to art school I taught myself to draw by studying the drawings of other artists, by seeing what was achieved in the ways they drew. I drew every day for hours for many, many years. This is how I found my way of drawing, the way that facilitates what I am here to express. And, not so curiously, I got paid to do this.
We each have our own way of drawing. We can refine this way of drawing but it does not change that much. We can always spot a David Hockney even when he draws in different ‘styles’. The same with other artists. But what does change with experience is the facility with which we’re able to make art that has assurance, art in which intention is clear.
So gaining facility is certainly part of what an art class is about. And most classes do this by having students make observational drawings. But what we are here to express in art is spirit and insight. And what I will try to teach is how to go beyond observation into the place where spirit and insight come together in image.
More next time.