About Drawing Classes...

"The peculiarity of my temper is, ma'am, that I won't be swallowed up alive."

Charles Dickens, "Little Dorrit" 

Sometimes I'm asked about "a few tips on drawing buildings" or "a fast way to learn perspective rules". The only valuable "fast tip" which comes to my mind in such cases is "TAKE ART CLASSES". Yes, for me it's the best way to gain a solid base in drawing. 

Before I started to write this article I made a little Google-search to check out what other people think about attending such classes (just in case my notion was totally contradictory to the generally prevailing). It turned out, that there are surprisingly many (though maybe not SO surprisingly many) opinions maintaining, that attending drawing courses is quite redundant. Why? Because everything can be learned from YouTube videos and internet tutorials totally for free. I decided to test it (oh, how mistrustful I am) and typed "How to draw a cockroach". The browser found over 10.000 results... in a split second... I had no more questions.

Anyway I'm going to insist on my point of view and bring forth those benefits of real-life art classes, which you won't get from Internet:

1. Professional feedback (i.e. comprehensive, constructive criticism) about your own work. The truth is that you may make mistakes/encounter problems other than  the person presenting his/her own work on the Internet. A skillful teacher can notice  weaknesses, which you could never notice yourself, or at least would discover after a longer time.

2. High efficiency. Apparently it's best to learn from your own mistakes, but... mistakes of other course participants can also be very "developing". When you're watching your colleague getting remarks, a metaphorical warning light turns on in your brain. Thereby you become aware of many errors before you'll make them yourself. What a time saver! Initially, pointing out errors publicly seems slightly... embarrassing. But look at this matter from a different angle: the more remarks you get, the more conclusions you can draw. Furthermore your splendidly bad example will serve your colleagues :) (nope, it wasn't comforting to me either).

3. Necessity of drawing under pressure and awareness that your work will be evaluated. Maybe it doesn't sound like "oh so fun", but it helps to develop more "responsible" attitude to drawing. And it's not as unpleasant as it seems (though, after that, drawing at home is a pure relax).

4. It helps you to accustom yourself with  presenting your artworks to a real  audience (even if it consists of your tutors and other participants of the course). It's a completely different feeling from putting a drawing on the Internet. It also teaches you to accept criticism with dignity (i.e. you're able to hold back bursts of crying in front of strangers).

5. New exciting friendships - for many people it's a BIG PLUS to meet individuals with the same interests. Well... as an extremely alienated teenage girl I hadn't benefited from this aspect. In hindsight I  regret it a little, but, as written above, we learn best from our mistakes.

6. Maybe you have some insights on art classes? I'd love to get to know them! 

After rereading first 4 points I got a strange impression, that attending drawing classes can appear as series of stress and humiliation... I have no idea why. But in reality it's not that bad! (in most of cases)
  

At the end here are some of my works made during art classes (long, long time ago):

 

Watercolors - Beginnings

"But what am I going to see?
I don't know. In a certain sense, it depends on you.” 

S. LEM "Solaris" 

Today's story will concern my beginnings in struggling with watercolors. Maybe it doesn't sound too interesting. What's even worse, maybe it really isn't too interesting. Nevertheless this story should be uplifting for those who are doubting in their ability of mastering this technique.

I admit that some people just have a sense for watercolors. They know intuitively in which proportions the paint should be diluted to create both delicate and precise work. They can avoid unwanted smudges and "moldy" patterns. Well, I'm not one of them. 
While struggling with watercolors I felt a mix of frustration and desperation fueled by low self-esteem. However I had to  mobilize myself just enough to be able to pass an entrance exam for the Faculty of Architecture and then cope with art classes during studies. I just had to find the way to conquer watercolors before they defeat me.

STAGE 1. First (and second, and third) attempts with watercolors were a series of defeats and setbacks. Paint flew in all possible directions (especially in those directions it shouldn't). Alternatively it was so dense and sticky that it was losing its transparent properties and just couldn't be smeared. Drawing something precisely was almost impossible, not mentioning about drawing it aesthetically (I'm using the word "drawing" because despite appearances watercolor is a drawing technique).

STAGE 2. Even if a pen or pencil sketch was not a big problem for me, watercolors were destroying all my previous efforts. Apparently it's easier to have control over lines than over spots. I noticed a simple relation: the less paint on my works, the better.
Slowly and laboriously I began to learn how to control watercolors, i.e. how much water should be added depending on desired results or what the pressure of a brush should be. It's easier to focus on that while using only one color.  A very gentle application of paint didn't cover a pen drawing but only indicated the light direction and suggested dimensionality. Temporarily I resigned from striving for photorealism and the result appeared to have its charm :)

STAGE 3. But with time my  palette expanded to a staggering number of 3 and later even 5 colors. Nowadays I rarely  exceed this number because, as it's commonly known, many hues can be easily achieved  by mixing specific paints.  

STAGE 4. After a long time of arduous attempts I finally comprehended how to depict details with watercolors. The key to success is getting a very thin brush...

...and gaining a practice in using it. Sketches were needed only to set the overall composition and became quite invisible under more boldly used watercolor paint.

STAGE 5. Of course I'm still trying to develop my abilities and facing new challenges, but that's a story for a different post :)