Close

Cycle 3, Weeks 3 and 4 are here!

Good morning!

Here are Weeks 3 and 4 for this year’s Cycle 3.  I wasn’t intending on overhauling Week 4 as much as I did, but the more research I did about Abstract Art, the more I really got into the story about it, and its role in the 20th century historical movements.  (and this from someone who, in college, avoided taking 20th Century Art History because, “In my opinion, all that paint throwing nonsense isn’t art.” My 20-year-old self would be aghast at the respect I hold some abstract art in now! )

Now, there is abstract paint throwing whose artistic beauty is completely in the eye of the beholder, and whose artistic merits can be (should be) questioned/debated, but that’s for another time, and another conversation.  But I hope you enjoy Abstract Art as much as I enjoyed creating the module!

Weeks 2 and 3 are two techniques which art students use to help them break a mental image into their component shapes and forms (particularly if their brain is forcing the drawing to an icon/pattern).  Once you start to see how to break complex images down quickly (even automatically with enough practice) you don’t need to do these exercises anymore unless a particular image is giving you problems. (Other techniques include gesture drawing, quick gesture drawing, contour drawing, and blind contour drawing.)

Week 4 of course, is an animal all its own.

And Week 5…week 5 is a college level course, but we’ll break it down.

BTW, While the above quote from Bob Ross ended up being cut this year (its was so close…) I love how he uses the word “brainwashed”.  We really have been brainwashed into believing we had to be Michelangelos from birth, or we couldn’t do art at all.  Take a look at this watercolor below, showing one of the sites where men planned the Boston Tea Party.  Not a Michelangelo, but certainly interesting and realistic enough, and now an invaluable record from a well-studied time and place in history. We don’t have to paint a Sistine Chapel to help ourselves learn, see more accurately, and gain better communication tools, we just need to know HOW to do it.  And….who knows?  Someday, your little sketch in a letter, or a diary, or just stashed in a pile of papers somewhere might provide historians with your own window to your world at your time.

 

ANNOUNCEMENT:

One of the things that helped me immensely when I was learning how to draw, was to watch (and follow along) as my instructors demonstrated something for us.  My husband is helping me set up a Facebook Live Demo on Friday, July 28, 2017 at 9pm (Eastern Daylight Time). Be sure to like the Drawing Demystified FB page (upper right-hand corner below the banner) so you can see the demo/lesson,  and if you haven’t done it, sign up for the newsletter under “Newsletter Signup” in the menu to keep updated, and ask questions!  (If you can’t make the live demo, you should be able to watch the replays on Facebook.

C3W3 Upside Down

C3W4 Abstract Art