Life Drawing from the past year.

As usual, life drawing is something I always like to keep working at.  I think it's especially important for teachers of art to keep life drawing.

Many artists will say that because they are not involved in representational art that they don't need to work from life, well if that's the case don't listen to any of their objective criticisms.

If those artists cannot prove that they have spatial awareness and knowledge of proportion, then all they have for you are opinions that could equally have come from someone of no training.  Should a journeyman tradesperson listen to the criticisms of a lackey?

On a base level it's possible for a lackey to observe that something has been well made, and that is equally true of art.  It's good to hear criticisms, but for any technical observations and the suitability of certain media to express ideas, those should fall upon deaf ears.

Too often, and increasingly, student artists are being 'taught' by those who have no knowledge of the life room or critical aspects of art.  This would be fine if the world of art was exclusively the domain of conceptual artists, however this is not the case. 

A good training in all the fundamentals of art is needed, I despair when I learn that artists who last set foot in the life room decades ago, if at all, are teaching in the life room.  Likewise, it's equally wrong for an artist whose skills are the primary domain of the life room to solely teach conceptual art. 

It may seem I have a chip on my shoulder, I do.  The world of art is something I have dedicated my life to, I hate to see the quality of our education eroded by 'bean counters' and 'paper pushers' who are cutting costs with little care for students.


Below are some of my favourite drawings that I produced from life over the past year.

Compressed Charcoal, prolonged gesture drawing.

Quick tonal study, charcoal and compressed charcoal

 Conté crayon

Pastel

Conté crayon

Charcoal and conté crayon

 Charcoal gesture drawing

Sepia chalk

Charcoal and conté on toned paper

If you are a disillusioned art student, try reading 'Letters to a Young Poet' by Rainer Maria Rilke.  It's a book with particularly poignant observations for the student of creativity, It helped me ground some of my thoughts about art while I was a student. 


Thank you for reading.  Please check back soon. 

If you are interested in my work, please take a look at my website, or my facebook page.  Thanks again.

Barry.