What is it about birthdays that makes us reflective? Or is that just me?
Here’s my thoughts today on art education, and why so many of us have been failed.
And perhaps, too, what we might do to turn that sad state of affairs around.
(I should let you know up front, this is unedited, just exactly as it came out. It’s probably too long. But I’d rather you see it exactly as it is, with no gilding.)
How about you? Do you feel you were failed? Please let me know in the comments.
Best wishes,
Paul
Posted: October 13th 2013
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Bravo Paul! I too had an experience with a Tiepolo ceiling in Venice around the time I turned 40! I was absolutely stunned when I heard you describing it. How astonishing that this same artist touched us both, across centuries of time, and returned us to art. It changed the course of my life as it did yours. That is the power of art and beauty. Keep on and happy birthday!
Happy Birthday first of all and a big thank you for your honest and true talk. I am in my studio setting up a still life. I walked the corridors of art schools a wee bit before you and drawing was still being taught and we even had the occasional life drawing class which was wonderful but since then the world seems to have embraced the concept of conceptualism only. Long live representational and figurative art! Nothing lasts for ever and even Saatchi hosted a beautiful show a couple of months ago which was all about drawing and paper. I loved it. Did you happen to see it? Anyway I shall look at your new Art Triggers site with interest and as an aside I went on a Julian Merrow Smith course earlier this year and there are rumours on the grapevine that you may be teaching for him next year??? Thanks again, Karin
Wonderful Deborah! I must track down the painting. There are a lot of his there of course, but I wonder if it was the same one!?
Happy, happy Birthday Paul and thank you for sharing your thoughts. Don’t think for a minute that your time and effort is wasted.I for one appreciate immensely your two websites. It has made a world of difference in my daily habits of keep on going to draw everyday. Often life just takes over and I am busy with other things, but I always pull myself back into my artistic endeavor, simply because I love it.
A long time ago I read in a book about a man who came up with this wonderful idea and he wanted everyone learn this way of life and then he realized that that was perhaps impossible. One day he had an enlightening thought, that if he just made a difference in one persons life he has succeeded. That one person then can do the same in sharing the knowledge and make a difference.
I have been telling a few of my friends about your websites and I am sure your efforts are not in vain. Please continue what you are doing because I will.
Helga
Thank you Karin!
I heard Saatchi (of all people) was starting to show an interest in representational art. I believe he’s a shrewd investor before anything else so perhaps that’s a hopeful sign. I haven’t heard of that show but I’ll see what I can find out, it sounds very interesting.
Julian is quite a painter isn’t he? His courses look great, I hope you had a good time and learned lots! We’ve talked about the possibility of me helping out and I’d love to. as I’m always saying to my young son, we’ll just have to wait and see 🙂
Thanks you so much Helga. You just made me cry a bit! In a nice way though.
Warning! Also long and rambling!
Yes!
I had a wonderful art teacher in High school, he pushed me and taught me and befriended me. He taught me how to see and how to get “in the zone” He was amazing. Then we moved to another state and I changed schools. That is when it started going downhill. The teacher may have been an amazing artist, but a poor teacher. He didn’t like me and didn’t bother to help or guide me.I felt myself shriveling up. He told me not to bother with art school, but to try a community college and see if I could make it. What a terrible thing to say to a student. And I was a good artist! So, being a shy teenager, I let him crush me. The bastard.
While looking at colleges, I had an art director during an interview totally rip my portfolio apart and chased me out of his office in tears. I know he was trying to weed out the weak, but to be nasty?! I needed to get a thicker skin, but crushing people isn’t a good way to encourage students. As a college age student, I was drifting but decided on pursing science illustration. I chose what looked like a good program but in the end, was a waste of time and $. NO BASICS! When I landed an amazing internship with a medical illustrator, he was dismayed at my utter lack of basic painting skills. It was never a requirement or taught anywhere along the path I took. He had to go backwards and teach me how to paint. When he & I attended a workshop by the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, he teased the head artist from National Geographic that he had some competition on his hands when they were watching me work on a piece! Oh, how my heart soared!I have the talent, but it wasn’t until my 30s that I was able to get any REAL training! Like you,I have been off the radar for years now and want to get back into it! Thank God I have found your site! Additionally, my daughter is dissatisfied with the art program at her art school. But I know better! I am enrolling her in extra programs when we can and have also turned her towards your site.
Don’t give up on me just yet. I need you. Many of us do. Happy Birthday Paul.
Thanks April = you don’t ramble nearly as much as me 🙂
>NO BASICS!
Exactly! That’s exactly what’s missing.
That’s a sad story you’ve told, but it has a really positive ending. You can now help your daughter avoid the pitfalls you yourself had to clamber out of. I’m also really glad to hear that you found some good training in the end. For too many of us, the only decent training we can find is that we give ourselves.
>Don’t give up on me just yet.
I never will Evie. That’s a promise.
Well your sites have certainly helped me loads over the years and continue to do so. But I do want to see you get back to painting as well as teaching! I hope you get the time soon.
I never made it through my foundation course – we did do some drawing but I didn’t learn any of the fundamental principles which I had hoped. We were just left to get on with it for the most part and everything was about quantity rather than quality. Also the emphasis was very much on the idea, and unfortunately the faster and more glibly you could come up with a trite concept the better ( I felt they were trite anyway, others would disagree).. I would spend ages on my drawings and even longer pondering my ideas and fell so far behind with the course work I just gave up in the end and decided to go my own way. So it was partly down to my temperament – but also the course which just seemed to be a sausage factory churning out students with no technical skills but lots of ability to talk up their ideas! Thanks for the post and happy birthday . Eat lots of cake : ) !!
🙂
>a sausage factory churning out students with no technical skills but lots of ability to talk up their ideas!
All too familiar Rosemary!
Thanks very much, I’ve really pleased to hear that you’ve got something from my aimless output over the years. Especially coming from as competent a painter as you, that means a lot to me.
I’d like to get back to more painting too, but there just isn’t time right now. In the mean time I’m more than happy just to keep practising daily. That’s enough for now. Sometimes that’s all we can do I think, but it counts for a lot.
yes, Tiepolo is “the light”. now I am collecting informations for a new life with draw and colors.
Thanks for your lessons, every artist (or self named artist) needs helps, inspirations, ideas. I read Leonardo, Bargue, Segantini, Goethe, Kandinsky, books and studies but ART is the soul of each of us, the real inspirations borns from us. I know a few painters of modern-informal art, young and olds aged, and every one of them translate his soul with different colours and forms. They are not famous, but every one of them tells me something new. I had a 2 months etching scool with Corrado Albicocco a most important Italian printer coming from Urbino’s “Scuola del LIbro”. I new artisti of etching and learnede the importance of drawing in Art. My best wishes.
Happy Birthday, Paul! I just started following you recently. We are the same age. I got my BFA in 1989. I had great and constructive teachers, but the way the art curriculum was formulated then, it definitely focused on concept. That’s what the big galleries and the big collectors wanted (still want?). I certainly learned some technique, but it just seemed like instruction was lacking–especially now, when I’m trying to perfect my technique with certain mediums, etc. I certainly don’t blame my instructors, but in two years, in our university system, it’s not enough time. And, certainly, it seemed art competitions didn’t encourage beautiful drawings.
Anyway, I, too, hope to bring a little more beauty into this world. I understand, though, the need to have to find some way to support it. Art supplies are expensive!! Without my day job, I wouldn’t be able to afford 1/2 my supplies. Even with graphite, the paper and framing is so much. If you can find a way to support your passion, Creative Triggers is perfect! I hope it’s immensely successful!
Thanks Severino.
It must be wonderful to learn etching from a master. That takes serious discipline and focus to do well!
esxuse me for mistakes.
.
Thanks Patti.
I certainly do think it’s possible to learn to draw very well in two years – if you have the time to practice and good teachers.
Whether the big galleries still want conceptual work – well, that may be shifting. I have nothing personally against conceptual work. Some of it I find quite interesting actually. But it’s a very different pursuit than the form of expression I’m involved in – one that ha been a primary form of expression for thousands of years.
What I find reprehensible is the idea that representational art is somehow backward looking. that beauty and honesty is somehow trite and twee. I think things will right themselves eventually, but I’m still angry for all the lovers of beauty that could find now foothold in the education of the last few decades. These people have absolutely been failed in my opinion, and I think that’s very sad.
I’m ranting again! I should shut up now. I hear you about the cost of materials, that’s for sure! I have a day job too to pay for mine.
Your daily practise definitely does count for a lot – both for yourself and to inspire the rest of us : ) I will get there one day!
Thanks for saying I’m competent at painting – sometimes I feel I’m just blagging it – I’m still trying to work backwards all the time to hone the fundamental skills. Really enjoying the value excersises by the way.
Your fundamentals are pretty strong I think, Rosemary. You’re certainly not blagging it! Perhaps you need to take a quick trip round gallery land in London to refresh your ideas of what blagging really is 🙂
>Really enjoying the value exercises by the way.
Brilliant, thanks!
Hello Paul & Happy Birthday!
Myself, at the age of 42 I decided to start an art degree with a local college (2 weeks ago). I have been painting for years & attended various workshops around Europe but I guess I wanted something official. Like you I am a lover of representational art & beauty and I was rather hesitant about this decision. But I said I may give it a try and maybe something good may come out of this. In these 2 weeks I realised that maybe there isnt too much to be learned along the way in classical training but I will try to keep it my way(even though the professors may not like it) since I have good competence in drawing& there is some freedom in choosing what to draw and paint.
It is a major decision in this stage of my life to start this degree (time, money & effort) but it is also a big commitment which hopefully will drive me towards a specific goal…
Anyway, like Hippocrates had said ‘Life is short, Art is long’ & we all need some commitment in doing Art. If they decide to throw me out of the college I will let you know 🙂
George
Happy Birthday Paul! Thanks so much for all of your efforts on this site. I continue to come back here from time to time, and I always manage to find something helpful. I did 4 value paintings of geometric shapes this weekend based on many of your ideas, and the results are extremely helpful. I was never formally schooled in art so I can’t speak to the the experience of being disappointed be art education. However, I would like to say that I have been very fortunate to find an instructor at a local reputable art school who has been willing to work with me one-on-one. It took a whole year for me to find such a person, one whose work I really liked. So, if I can throw my two cents in here for a minute, my own advice for anyone wanting to seriously study fine art would be to follow a website like this of course. But, they may also benefit from finding a really good art teacher/mentor for 1:1 instruction to move the process along even faster. I look forward to seeing other developments. Paul, I also hope you will post more of your paintings.
best,
Jon
Happy Birthday! Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us, your work is amazing:-)
Happy Birthday Paul,
I totally agree with you about art education failing people these days.
Happy Birthday Paul! Thanks for sharing your wonderful story. I find it really inspirational!
Thanks George, I think it’s great that you’ve decided to pursue what you want so single-mindedly and with such commitment. I hope your course gives you something useful, in addition to the qualification.
Stick with it. Getting thrown out didn’t help me at all in the long run!
Hi Jon, great to hear from you. Those restricted value studies are fantastic for getting your value skills up to scratch aren’t they?
That’s brilliant that you’ve found good one to one instruction. That surely must be the best way to make progress. The difficulty is finding enough skilled artists who can teach that way – precisely because so many practising artists these days went through the same ridiculous art education I did.
Thanks Denina, glad you like 🙂
Thanks Darlene. It’s such a shame that the situation – at least in art colleges – doesn’t seem to be getting any better. I have a feeling that the real world (i.e. not publicly funded) galleries will be more accepting of representational work again long before the colleges grudgingly accept it again. Very sad.
Martijn thanks. I’m really glad you enjoyed it – despite the rambling!
My professor took my idea 61 years ago fond out last month. Made his rep. on it word for word step by step ITS THE {ADD ON SUBTRACT METHOD in lithography. I your interest I willshow you
If interes I will show U
If interest I will show U
Hi Michael,
I’m really sorry to hear that happened to you. I can understand that it must be very galling for you personally.
It’s a little off the point of this post though – I’m talking about art education in general here, and how basic drawing skills don’t seem to carry much importance. About how people who want to continue public art education but also are interested in representation and beauty have nowhere to go.
Happy Birthday Paul!. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Thanks for this site.
Happy birthday, Paul. I appreciate what you’ve shared here and what you’ve made possible for me through Creative Triggers. And at 46, I’m glad I found you when I did…I have a niggling sense that I’ve finally struck gold. My connection to my creative drive has been strengthened by doing your suggested practice. Before, I’d go in fits and starts, harassed by a sense that the work I wanted to do was of no value to the world, and so why should I even strive to master drawing or painting. As if that wasn’t discouraging enough, I also struggled to find quality instruction. I’m glad those days are over. Thanks, Paul!
Dear Paul , you are a great artist,don’t worry about the current teaching phylosophy .You are already on the right track giving inspiration and hope to me and many others. Thank you for your honest feeling and thought about real art education.
Oh I so wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments on every level. Like you I am tired of ugly confrontational and just plain weird art that seems to have infiltrated nearly all galleries and art exhibitions in my part of the world, Australia.
Sometimes I wonder why I bother to produce anything realistic, that unless I can produce contemporary or abstract art I’m not relevant in the art world. It can be very depressing. I was heading towards 50 when I made the decision to follow my heart and do what I had always wanted to do. Like you I was ‘failed’ and discouraged from doing so at school and was pushed to get a real job. My entire working life was spent in deeply dissatisfying work so now I have a lot of catching up to do. Thank you for your sincere and honest sharing.
Cynthia
Happy Birthday, Paul!
May all your dreams and wishes come true.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.
Hi Paul. Happy birthday. ( day after…). Thank you for sharing
your thoughts.
And I did find a great site during my search on the web, years ago.
It was ‘Creative Triggers’. Thanks again for all the work you put into it.
What a progression you have made. The all too familiar crushing art school expierience. I did the foundation after my art teacher who was an illustrator made that rare English thing of making a positive comment, that I had a facility for painting. The Foundation course whilst in theory is a good idea is really only a term of pushing to get a go at things and if they have already decided how to pigeonhole you that can be thwarting.
I trained eventually as a woodgrainer and marbler, but the construction industry in the 1980 was a challenging place to be, when a young woman. And I had ideas, creative ones. So I reapplied and did Textiles at a prestigious London College, was thrilled to get in. In many ways it was merely studio space, and at the end after arbitry marking of degree shows, rather than on your performance during your course, I was very glad to leave. Being in such a place gave you no extra support or help then anywhere else. The teachers such as they were had an aggression about them, they were training future competition, and they had been institutionised. The main benefit were the part time tutors who if you were lucky could be good. I would draw as much as I could, and I remember glowing, thrilled, at an apparent insult of my drawing at the time, being described as old fashioned, and that it reminded them of Nicola Hicks, the sculptor.
I thought a degree would give me confidence in my abilities, I was wrong. It did for a short while. However, like I have read else where an artist’s temperament is complex and I think it needs chanelling in the right way. Positive thinking practice would be a good start. Our skins seem to be thinner than most
What I have learnt is that I am happier when I am drawing.
Just wanted to say your site is what I am looking for. I know that turning up once a week to a night school will not bring progress on a quick level. Also I am not interested in drawing or painting a picture on my first go. I think the process is interesting in itself. I definitely do not want to miss out on the creative triggers membership. So I look forward to having something from Creative Triggers in my inbox later today where I can sign up.
Hi Paul, that’s nice, I meant “Learning to See’, I guess my head is full of The Creative Triggers exercises in the morning!
Have a very nice day!
And thanks again for all your work!
Hi Paul,
As I’ve written previously, I had a very similar art school experience to you, also in the mid 80s and have found Learning To See inspirational. I was lucky in that my Foundation course was very good. I too was failed at the end of my first year of my painting degree course. It was recommended that I study graphics, illustration or art history instead. Incredibly the course leader handed me a very positive written reference when he kicked me out, saying that I was a capable, committed and hard working student who was failed purely for being ‘misplaced in Fine Art’. I now see that that reflected rather badly on him as a teacher rather than on me as a student. Surely any teacher worthy of the title would aim to help any enthusiastic student to progress and grow, not stifle and reject them. As you say, actively harmful and, at that time, being well paid out of public funds to be so.
Anyway, all paths have their complications and lead us to a variety of experiences, many of which will be positive and that we will treasure. My subsequent life has worked out well in many ways so I’m not unhappy that I was diverted from my chosen route.
The Internet has been a real gift to me, and I’m sure many others in similar positions. There actually are many painters out there that share my interests in the craft of drawing and painting and, crucially, many skilled teachers too. Finally I know the things that even the staff at my art school didn’t know.
Anyway, thanks for your work Paul. It matters to many people.
Ever Onwards!
Further to my previous comment. I think that the problem with art education in the UK, and perhaps other countries too, is that it is trying to be too academic. I think that art history is an academic subject but that painting, sculpture, etc, are basically vocational subjects centred on craft skills and probably should never have been turned into degree subjects.
An excellent book on the subject is Why Art cannot Be Taught by James Elkins. I strongly recommend it. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Art-Cannot-Taught-Handbook/dp/0252069501/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381745522&sr=8-1&keywords=why+art+cannot+be+taught
I studied in UK from GCSE onwards and I did not even do art for A level. I suppose i was more incined to draw/paint what I see rather than coming up with something original concept that art teachers like. I continued to paint at the college in my own time though. I suppose i’m more of an impressionistic rather then expressionistic type so representational art appeals to me more.
I wish I had studied art but I ended up doing medicine instead (partly family expectations). However, looking at the current art curriculums, I suspect that they are not really for me anyway. There are lots of things I wish i had self taught myself in the past though. So many basics that would have made me a much more competent painter that I am now. I’ve had my procrastination path and i need to work more to catch up.
Currently, It seems that representational art has a lot of role in graphic illustrations especially in the game and comic industry. However, I feel that the art world begins to get bored of the conceptual arts since it’s no longer a new thing- just loke how they got bored with sentimental arts in the past.. Therefore, the future may be a bit brighter than 20 years ago with more well trained artist to compete with each other on the representational art world.
I collected lots of art books and DVD instructions like you did. The difficult thing is trying to come up with a sensible self-teaching programme that I can work on continuously. I feel that your web site helps immensely with what i need right now. I’m very looking forward to joining your creative Trigger community. Thank you so much for spening so much time on this. I really want to see how your compositional exercises improves your paintings too. I really want to follow your path, afterall.
Wish you a very happy birthday.
Wonderful video, Paul. Like you, I struggled to find my own path toward art training. Your site serves a huge need and I wish you much success!
And Happy Belated Birthday, too!
Happy Birthday Paul.
Wonderful post, and it’s the same or worse in the US in terms of fine art education. Illustration, not so much, and in fact it’s still very traditional in most schools.
Paul, it takes a lot of courage to bare yourself to such an honest and emotional level. Thank you, the world needs more of that.
The things you talked about are exactly some of the reasons I am self-taught.
All the best,
David Jay Spyker
(long one here)
Thank you for your words and for the work of your heart here. You have already touched and even changed things for so many artists that truly have been failed and ended up lost along the way.
I am 49 and am just starting my journey over. Sometimes I feel like it’s a race and I am in a great hurry to learn as much as I can as quickly as I can to make up for lost time. I know it is about the ride and not the destination, but still, we struggle with those things in us.
I wanted to say I was really failed and had my heart broken truly by my art eduction in the US. I had a rough time of it as a kid but was sharp as a tack and worked hard to graduate when I was 15 so I could start art school. All I wanted to do was study art and I did. I started art school at 16 years old. I told everyone I met that I was going to be an artist but had not earned the title yet and that I was going to work hard to learn to draw. I was looked at like I was an alien. I did work hard and I drew every day and put all my heart into the weird little assignments we had. I did the best chunky peanut butter impasto painting of Starry Night that I could possibly do. I took plastic farm animals and wrapped them in thin little wisps from a glue gun and painted them cake icing white with all my heart. I did things with barbie doll heads that made the teachers smile in approval. I got A’s in everything.
But I kept waiting and waiting. Surely the next class will teach me how to draw. Finally I took another drawing class and decided to teach myself the rest and draw – to really draw. I did a series of three drawings of a pianist there on campus playing the black grand piano on stage. She passed away in the process of the drawings. The last drawing was just an empty piano. They were the best drawings I had ever done, and honestly have ever done. They all sold to music faculty before I had finished them. I was honored, I felt real, it all made sense and then I failed the class. I failed the class because my drawings. When I went to the instructor and asked why did I fail? Why were my drawings failing quality.
That day I was told that I would never be an artist. I would never be an artist because I could never be good enough and that where would always be someone better than me. Because I was too interested in drawing details and would not be able to find my own voice. Finally, that I was came from a white, middle class family and had not seen any struggles or hardships. I “had to too good” to be an artist.
I left his office in tears, defeated and left art school about a year later to study medieval philosophy. I never totally quit making stuff but I did quit believing in my ability to become who I always thought I was. I ended ups struggling with depression on and off for many years as well. It was just about a year ago that I had my “aha” moment that put me back on the path of my heart.
Your site is so important for someone like me, 49, broke and just starting again. I am now disabled – That changed a lot of things – I have the time but have pain and no money for Atelier tuition. I am working a trade at a local Atelier studying the Bargues’ and casts. I am teaching myself in the evenings and studying traditional Grisaille painting.
I still get discouraged at the time that I lost and about my age, but in all honesty there is no other path for me, and there never was. I get so much joy in the progress I am making and in the like minded people I am now meeting. There is a great joy in knowing that you are doing exactly what it is you are meant to do!
Hi Paul. You know you have been an inspiration to me for many years, not just for your own art which is very lovely but even more for your generosity of spirit and desire to share and give to others. Obviously many others feel the same way as me so I hope you are encouraged by that and continue with all you are doing.
My own art education, so called, was a completely useless foundation course many years ago. I gave up hope of learning anything pretty quickly, about the time I found myself glueing nails into my sketchbook I think!, No, I don’t know either but obviously it was easier for the tutors than teaching sight size.
Let me know next time you fancy some cake at the Watts Gallery.
Best wishes and don’t underestimate the good you are doing.
I can’t even believe how much I agree with you. I am a self thought artist and I decided not to attend an art college for just these reasons. I think it goes even deeper. I think that the art schools actually push an agenda with their “concepts”. There is a common tread that flows threw modern art and concept art and it is dark and ugly. I don’t want to be apart of that either. Thanks for the video, good to hear someone feels the same.
Hi Paul.
Thank you very much for what you’re doing! This is really very important for me. Actually, your site is the best art learning site I’ve found on the web!
wish you a belated happy birthday!
Thanks so much for the comments everyone. I’m really sorry I don’t have time to reply to everyone individually. I’ve been quite overwhelmed by the response to this.
Sometimes you put these things out and you’re never quite sure how they’re going to go down. Will everyone disagree? Will anyone even notice? Obviously this is something a lot of us feel strongly about. Some of the stories in the comments here are really incredible. I’m outraged all over again. And this is such a small sampling. How widespread must it be?
What really comes through for me though is that despite all those obstacles we still strive to find our own way forward.
That’s a very positive thing. Every time one of us sits down and tries to create something beautiful, we show all those misguided educators and aficionados of ugliness and irony that in the long view, truth, beauty and light will prevail.
Hi paul,
Happy belated birthday.
I was very touched by your so truthfull video it has spurned me to say a few word on the same subject and give my twopence worth.
I had started my artistic career as a sign writer, going to night schools…always trying to reach my full potential…but knowing I was missing the link to get me to where I wanted to go.
many years later, after putting art on the back boiler and rearing a family of 5 children I took my self off to do a 4 year teaching degree….thinking this is going to do it for me.Well …I learned such wonderful things like art history, graphics, textiles, printing( lino, engraving, lito, mono, copper plate, etc) ceramics, video making, 3d construction, paper making, philosophy, calligraphy, photography, darkroom techniques, sociology, etc etc…but no drawing skill.It was thought that if it was taught…. that the student would then end up either painting/or drawing in the masters style…such rubbish.After attaining a 1.1 deg in ba and a hdip….I realised that my ambition outweighted my ability…so off I set teaching my self the “how to do it” step by step …like thousands others, buying every book , every dvd, and trying to join the dots myself…making sense of this learning….luckily im a motivated person and I practice drawing/painting daily.
While I dont lay the entire blame on the colleges doorstep…(.they are more interested in the conceptual ideas,) I am now taking ownership of my learning….so between your web site, bargue books exercises, memory training exercises, etc and daily practice the dots are joining together.
Keep up the great work paul,
Its all worthwhile,
Dee.
Thanks Dee. It’s wonderful to hear how you’ve found a way to progress. I like the way you put it, ‘joining the dots’ is a very apt description. It would just be nice if we didn’t always have to find our own ways to join dots that have been very beautifully joined before – although most colleges seem to have forgotten how – or are at least not interested any more.
More power to you.
What books didn’t you find useful?
That’s a good question. So good that I think I’m going to write two blog posts based on it, one of the drawing and painting books I spent good money on that I thought were useless, and another – in order to have some kind of balance – a list of those I do recommend.
However, that doesn’t help you now. In the meantime, here’s my contender for all-time most useless art techniques book:
How to paint like the old masters
Utterly useless. Here’s a hint as to why: If you want to paint like the old masters, you don’t need a lot of esoteric materials and convoluted techniques. You need to learn to draw really, really well.
Wow, I have just stumbled upon your blog while looking for advice.
I did well in high school with both GCSE & a level Art & Design. I had a fantastic teacher who saw my potential, got the best from me & pushed me in the right direction to do an Art Foundation course. However the thought of uni scared me and while I struggled in a huge class in a collage I wasn’t happy in, I stupidly didn’t see the point in carrying on. 16 years later, happily married and with 3 gorgeous kids I have so many ideas I am not sleeping! I have never been focused on any one skill. I love photography but like the idea of mixing it with paint & other materials. I have also over the last few years been writing poems and had many compliments on my interior design skills. Should I try again to find a part time Art foundation course I can fit in around the children?
Thank you for your video and the sincerity of feeling expressed. Learning to See is a good title. The assumption in education is that we do not need to be taught to see, or even think (Edward de Bono). I think you are right to strongly call the restriction to accurate drawing skills a crime. I have much the same feelings about the fact that the learner in education is restricted in the questions they can ask. The one skill that a child has naturally to learn quickly – the asking of questions – is mostly disallowed. Then when the student gets to college they are suddenly expected to direct their own learning by asking questions. I am looking for ways of linking drawing and question asking, not just for “art” but for every other subject, for better living.
I’m very touched by this video.
I also felt alienated at art school. I was told, when I tried to draw better, that ‘you shouldn’t do what you can already do’. Also, a teacher said ‘when you leave here, you will still be able to draw, why not try other things?’
The upside is thatt I tried a lot of different media like animation, installation art, and got abroader perspective of the artistic experience… but I felt like my roots as an artist had been cut: the love for form (a teacher belittled it as ‘form-horniness’), the human body and its expressions, and the authentic, non-ironic attempt to communicate ones deepest experiences.
I am now 32 and as I return to my art practice more seriously now, I also notice how much skill is lacking. And the joy of building that skill!
I also resonate with the vision of connecting people around this purpose of re-empowering ourselves as artists.
So… is this the new avant-garde? Postmodernism has had its day, what does it mean to be a post-postmodern artist?
With education in school, we were never taught how to achieve the goal of what we were after (or required to achieve). Instead, we were almost left to ‘express ourselves’ in the best way we wanted to with the materials provided.
Myself (and many other teenagers at the time) wanted to paint what we saw, realistically. But how could we if we weren’t taught *proper colour theory, the importance of values and how to draw by seeing the shapes and not the objects.
*Proper colour theory meaning how to match colours, limited colour gamuts from certain hues, the differences between hue, saturation and value.
I agree with Dr Betty Edwards’ writings in her book “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” when she says that drawing and painting is similar to learning to read. If we stop learning at age 5, our reading ability will not progress from that of a 5 year old. The same is with artistic ability. I believe that we can teach the technical side of art to a very high degree to most people. But we cannot teach people how to be artistic.
Most people give up art in early teenage years due to inadequate education on how to draw and paint. This explains why when asked to draw a horse as a non-artistic adult, most will still draw like a young child.
I now teach art in workshops to my pupils the way I wish I was taught in school and they way I believe everyone should be taught.
Teach everyone to be technically competent as an artist first, THEN leave them to it their way.
I agree Tom. And it’s wonderful to hear that you’re passing on what you’ve learned to your students, they’re lucky to have you.
I’m not convinced that we can’t teach people to be artistic, though. I think sensitivity and appreciation can be taught, in the same way as any other skill can. Ideas and creativity come from deep knowledge of the domain – in this case visual art – and constant practice.
I just found your site yesterday when I search about how to learn drawing by myself and I read several of your post, I wish you could be my teacher and tutor 🙂
Thanks Rendria 🙂
Maybe I can – I’m in the process of putting some online courses together at the moment – the first one will be on mastering colour and will be ready soon. If you sign up for updates, you’l hear abut the course when it’s ready.
If you’d prefer the idea of a drawing practice community, you might want to have a look at the one I run at http://creativetriggers.com.
So glad to have found your site – I walked out of a fine art degree in the first term as a mature student as I was so disheartened.
I have wasted a ridiculous amount of time and money over the years on courses and books, trying to improve my skills, and have come to the end of them no better than I started.
Very much looking forward to exploring your courses 🙂
Paul… I’m now exactly in the same position as you were… turning 38, and I too abandoned drawing and painting for ten years, because of ridicule from others, self-doubt and the cynic “contemporary art” of today… I was taken aback by this video, it almost seems like you told my life’s story up until this point! isn’t that amazing? I’m going to start again, and this time I will persist.
Thanks, Alexandra
Paul, I just discovered your site and I love it already! I am happy to see that you found your way. I was told as an young teenager that I was not thinking realistically. I should study to be a nurse or a teacher or even a mommy. I gave up on school, all of it, for many, many years. Now I’m retired and can be whatever I want to be. I choose to be an artist. Fortunately, I don’t have to support myself financially – only enjoy myself.
Thanks Kathy, that’s great to hear! You’re in a great position now, and it’s never to late to learn.
A big thank you for this wonderful video!
Paul thank you so much for sharing your experiences and feelings so openly. It is a precious thing to see such honesty and generosity.
Along with you, and all the other people commenting here, I have been failed by art education. I was so discouraged from highschool on by teachers showing absolutely no interest, and in-fact, serious negativity towards my self-taught ability to draw realistically. I presented a visual diary page one day to my high school art teacher, a page with a very carefully drawn picture of a feather I had picked up myself as I walked, something I love to do almost as much as art. The teacher simply looked at it in an ever so gently condescending manner and then proceeded to tell me how about I try to reproduce a feather simpler and in repetition, with different colours… not worrying so much about making it look like a real feather. WHAT? She totally missed the artistic point there: what drew me to draw the feather was the feather. I love the intricacy and engineering marvel that the feather is, I am a died in the wool nerd and had read a lot about animals, and feathers and how each bird wing has several types of feathers, formed just so, to do just such a specific task, all of which combined give the bird the lift needed to fly. It was the feather I admired, and my drawing was what I now know to call a homage. A simplified multi-colour repetition is merely that, a repetition, a pattern, good for wrapping paper.
Any way I obviously can ramble on.
My discouragement has continued, I have gained snippets of useful information at the hands of various instructors (I hesitate to use the word teacher), and then been let down by the constant refusal to allow skill building, logic, discipline, knowledge and beauty to be valued.
I have spent a lot of money on courses and books, I can say I have found some that are genuinely very useful. I am now however left to do what you did, to take the bull by the horns and be my own teacher. To use the useful, and discard the useless, to trust myself, and let my own art grow and develop.
Beauty has it’s own value. Hail Beauty.
I will look at your website and drawing prompts too. I am most happy to purchase any bundles of writing, tips, exercises, and videos. Do you have any links for tips and exercises that you wish to sell?
Mary
Hello,
I was unfortunate enough to be in a university art department in the sixties. “Do your own thing” taught me nothing and I maybe saw an instructor two or three times in a quarter. Never saw a color wheel, never a word about how to mix color. I asked a teacher if a sable brush was worth the investment and was told (expletive)man, don’t ask me that, go paint with your tongue. I gave up trying to paint until a couple of months ago when I saw Julian Merrow-Smith’s paintings. I just had to try again. In recent times I’ve had a couple of teachers, still don’t know much but I’m doing something anyway. Wish me luck
I would like to suggest that the pursuit of technical skills has to mirror the deepening of our own sensitivity. They are interconnected and go hand in hand if we wish to continually express better how we see and feel.
At this point in my life I know just what you mean. I could always draw, was always the ‘arty one’ in the family, but for reasons that now seem ridiculous to me I set my education towards a zoology degree course. I kept up some art: sailed through GCSE (though perhaps that wasn’t much to brag about) but gave up in AS art. (AS – a kind of half-A-level. I don’t know if it’s still a thing) I just felt that being made to cut chicken shapes out of biscuit tins, and designing posters with little knowledge or instruction of graphics and composition, wasn’t teaching me anything. I met one of the teachers in the corridor not long after and he wanted to know if I expected the class to be trumpets and fanfares, or something like that. He didn’t make me want to come running back.
So I graduated zoology with a 3rd. Not brilliant. (Ironically I felt the zoology education was a bit like art education: when I attended it was mostly genetics and biochemistry – abstract concepts that I had trouble wrapping my head around. Very little of the observable ecology, and almost no anatomy or morphology, that I could cope with, and that matched my career dreams. I guess they wanted a few generations of lab technicians. Anyway.) With no job prospects falling into my lap, I found it difficult to get even dishwashing jobs.
Over ten years later and I’m still in the same place. I’ve kept up and even self-taught some art in that time (Burne Hogarth wasn’t the best point to start, but I moved on) but otherwise, it now feels like I’ve been in limbo all that time. Younger than some here, at 35, but the mid-life-crisis feeling is there all the same. Anything I learned in my zoology course is almost all forgotten and useless. I feel my only opportunity, let alone my best, is to throw myself back into art.
It doesn’t help to be out in the sticks. Plenty of life models for animal art (my big passion, partly what pulled me into zoology) but most art classes around here are more like – beg pardon for the condescending tone – social clubs for retired ladies, and to test the latest category of Derwent pencils. Again, not to knock them for what they are, but it feels limiting for what I want and need. The best I attended, where I learned some things (including just how pathetic with a paintbrush I really was) felt too far away to justify the regular travel and expense. These days I wonder if I should just suck it up get used to eating cheap noodles.
All of which is to say, I feel ridiculously grateful for sites like Learning To See, and more so as time goes on.
Hi Paul. Hello from Hobart in Tasmania. Thank you so much for your web site. I have just come across your 2013 birthday video. Yes my art education, which I undertook as a mature age student, failed me. It took me several years to get over it and to start painting for myself. I have become quite accomplished painting from photographs but no longer find this satisfying. I have begun still life painting! I think it’s about getting right back to the basics of art. I love the thought of paring everything down and being in touch with the ‘real’. I’m so impressed with your web site and have hardly scratched the surface. So excited. Thank you for your heart felt words. I can relate to your Venice experience as a similar thing happened to me when I saw Raphael’s Madonna dell’Impannata! at the Galleria Palatina in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, of I which I had previously painted a detail. Your call for beauty in art resonates with me. Cheers. Andrea.
Was I Failed by my Art Education? Ha! Ha, ha, ha! I spent four years in an accredited University for Art Education. All four years I had so called Art Instructive classes that covered figure drawing, painting–no specified medium, drawing classes, etc. When I graduated four years later I could not draw, paint or what ever any better than the first day of classes. I am 72 and have just re-entered the craft. What I am learning via You tube and other means my skill has improved somewhat despite my shaky hands. Was I failed by my Art Education? All I can say is “What Art Education?”
That was beautiful! I felt your genuine passion for the craft and how deeply you feel about everyone getting the opportunity, if they so choose to contribute to a more beautiful world. Thank you, Paul.