Tag / #watercolour

by Eileen 配仪

Thinking about art learning

My earlier post on the musical set me thinking about my art learning experience in a school vs self directed learning.

The key advantage in self directed learning is that you can shop for a teacher who teaches well. Sampling lessons makes a lot of difference in deciding what to consume. This works if you know specifically what you need to work on. It does not work if you lack direction in your journey. It also does not work if you lack discipline to sit down and paint. The other key is to pick up something harder to paint so that there is progress and change.

Being in a school meant for me someone is going lesson plan, to demonstrate, correct and provide me critique. This is the education that I am paying for. I don’t need the teacher to be funny in lesson delivery or empathetic why I didn’t do homework. I want this “pass up art work” weekly so that I am made to practice. This is why self-directed learning is hard. You are not accountable to someone whose job is to make you deliver.

Art is tough business. Making the learning process joyful or making a persons more excited about art isn’t actually pushing the student to be a better artist. If you are lucky, you get a teacher who shares concepts and demonstrates skills. The critique and feedback is most important in a school environment. If you are lucky, you will get great critique that is useable.

Doing art is something you don’t have to socialise. But art cannot exist in a bubble. A teacher forces socialisation, shares what is great or not so great and creates that tension to enable change.

by Eileen 配仪

Art Practice 4/5, 5/6

Last day of class for Basic Watercolour. The more I moved through the lesson pieces which were really hard for me, I noticed they pushed me to another level of skill.

We were to submit 2 out of 3 that we did. I picked the peaches and this watermelon. The cupcakes felt stiff and unnatural so I did not pick it. Everyone else picked the watermelon. I had wanted to ask the teacher why mine looked cartoony. I didn’t know how to describe cartoony to the teacher so I didn’t. He had mentioned a number of times that art is not a facsimile of the scene or the picture but I can’t get it. He said the form is more important than the texture and I also couldn’t get it. I frankly still don’t get what watercolour art is – he said botanical art is mostly drawing and illustration.

I start the intermediate class next week. I am starting to see that he is right – I should take a break in between classes. for one I can have a rest. A second reason is that I can do some of those that I enjoy.

I did a drawing together with Scott Maier. As the drawing emerges, he explains the artistic decisions he takes and untangles my confusion about the level of detail needed, what to bring forward, what to push back. That makes a big difference in understanding what I am trying to do in watercolour. He untangled my confusion about detail and texture and it is this – our brain naturally seeks patterns. We only need to create suggestions and allow our brain to make the connection. This suggestion is form craved out by light and shadows. By squinting and removing these details, we see a simplified version of what we are trying to paint and makes the job easier.

by Eileen 配仪

Art Practice 27/4, 20/4 and 13/4

These were painted part of my class homework for the NAFA Watercolour homework pieces. They were hard. Really hard – I threw away a number of practice pieces before getting to this and yet I still didn’t like what I did.

I want a higher level of realism which my art teacher has pointed out a few times that realism is not the point of watercolour paintings.

I have been mulling through this on and off: what is the realism that I am chasing after. Is it a copy of the picture?

When I was learning music, my music teacher gave me recording of a piece as reference. When I returned the following week and played it, she commented that I was able to produce a facsimile of her playing. I remembered that she said I was to express the musical feeling of the piece and not to copy her playing.

My artistic ability is shallow and all I can do at the moment is to try to match the picture. I don’t know what I should do if I am not suppose to copy the picture.

Funny – I felt pleased enough about the pear to state it on my blog and it now looks childish. For these, the only good thing I can say about them is that I have made some progress and I can pass up homework.

by Eileen 配仪

Art Practice 31/3

I really like what I did. I felt I broke through something and made a proper watercolour. I was faithfully trying to capture all the marks pear and it was starting to look stiff and plastic. I suddenly decided to just paint faster. I basically stopped looking at the details and started doing squiggly lines and dabbing it away. Colour wise, I painted a last layer of brighter green. These moves made the pear suddenly come alive.

Frankly I don’t really know what I did but it made a big difference to the whole thing.