improve your art TRY THIS

When I entered art school there was a painting teacher who had a reputation for being very good and, of course, everyone wanted to study with him. But finding a space available in his workshop was almost impossible. The process to enter his workshop consisted of taking a drawing test. There were several people who wanted to enter and we were all going to do this same test. He gave us a sheet of paper and charcoal to draw a model from life. I arranged my paper and began to draw. The teacher said nothing, he just walked and watched. When I finished, the teacher came over, saw my drawing, gave me a cloth and said: Erase it, do it again. I did it again now more carefully. When I finished he came over, gave me the cloth and said: Erase it again, keep working. When I finished, he saw it and said: Erase it. I rubbed the rag again. My paper was already black from so much carbon. The teacher then gave me an eraser and said: now get the lights back. In fact, I was very excited. I was achieving a result that I had never seen before. I kept detailing it. I brushed it off lightly with the cloth. I used the eraser to retrieve more lights. I kept working and detailing the drawing. Then I added white chalk, ink, and a little white paint to add highlights. I saw the result and was very surprised. It looked like a real drawing. I was just waiting for the teacher to come by and tell me: sign it. The teacher came over, saw my drawing and said: Tear it. I was shocked. I turned to see the other classmates who were also doing their drawings. Many of them were also very happy with their result. They said: I'm not going to tear my drawing, I've been working on it for a week, my result is incredible. So they put it away and left. I took my drawing and tore it. Then the teacher approached me and said: Bring your brushes on Monday, I'll teach you how to paint. This memory transports me many years later, when I was teaching painting in a school. There was a student who was struggling with a painting. I approached her and asked her what she wanted to achieve and she said: I want this figure to look like it is illuminated by a red light. I looked at the painting she was doing and noticed that she had dimly suggested a red light on the face, but it would take a lot more work to make the character look like she was bathed in red light. So I told her to try applying a glaze. She told me: I don't know how to do that. I said: this is the first time you do it, I will help you. I took a brush and dipped it in medium, took a little red, and completely covered the canvas with a clear coat of paint. She was horrified to believe that her painting was ruined and could not bear it. She fled the classroom. Her reaction seemed absurd to me. She believed that her painting was a masterpiece. But it was actually a student exercise. And that's where her training ended. She never learned to apply glazes. All this for assigning an inappropriate value to what she was doing. These experiences lead me to a third memory, about an exercise we did in drawing class. Which consisted of drawing with a brush and water on a sheet of paper. Of course, the drawings we made quickly evaporated and disappeared. It was a strange feeling because there were times when incredible drawings came out, but then they were gone. And what I remember most about this exercise was the feeling of unconcern about the result. You just enjoyed drawing. Of course I am not saying that we tear up our drawings or that we do not value them. But rather to be aware of when expectations in our own work begin to stiffen us. It is common that when we work on cheap paper we get carried away and draw with ease and freedom. But then when it comes to an oil-primed linen canvas and our expensive Rembrandt or Winsor And Newton oil paintings, we feel stiff. We do not allow mistakes, experiment, play or enjoy. We have to remember that when a drawing does not work, it can be erased. If a painting looks stiff, we can sand it down or cover it with a glaze. We can give ourselves the ability to make drastic changes. We have to lose the fear of being wrong or failing. In the end it is just a painting, nothing happens if it fails. In art it doesn't matter if one fails or makes a mistake, the only important thing is how many times we try again.

Channel: César Córdova

Views: 1,200,889

Rating: 4.9566779 out of 5

Keywords: painting, art, oil painting, how to, painter, real time, maler, Dipingere, Peindre, curso de pintura, clase de pintura, pintura al óleo, acrílico, aprender a pintar, pintura, óleo, clases, curso, gratuito, como, como hacer, tutorial, cesar cordova, arte, manualidades, dibujo, dibujar, malen, Anstreichen, Verven, للصبغ, Mengecat, 作畫, pintar, 塗る, Peinturer, Рисовать, पेंट करने के लिए

Id: ILB6NxXkGXo

Length: 5min 39sec (339 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 19 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/travbombs]

This is a great lesson. Thanks for sharing.

[u/ZombieButch]

As an aside, the method he develops the charcoal drawing he starts the video off with - building up the drawing then wiping it down in several steps before you start erasing out the lights - is the same method I learned for building charcoal drawings back in college. You're building up the whole thing in subsequent layers rather than trying to nail each little section perfectly the first time; it's good training for learning to paint.

[u/ZombieButch]

"Above all things, value your work in the making but lightly. Be bold to efface and renew, and take encouragement from the thought that you may learn more from honest failure than from mild success." - Solomon J. Solomon, On the Practice of Oil Painting and Drawing