Diary of a Student Artist

I seem to be in and out of blogging just now.  It’s not a permanent thing, I assure you, but things have been up and down here.  I started taking more panic attacks and feeling rather crappy again, but my medication has been increased and I feel a bit better now.  So you’ll have to forgive me for not having my previous online presence.  However, I don’t want to dwell too long on that subject; I hate being miserable! I want to talk about Atelier schooling!

Remember I attended an all day life-drawing class two weeks ago? Well it’s not a class as such, just an informal place for people to paint.  There’s no actual teaching.  While only being slightly disappointed, I was glad just to have a model to paint from again. However, I had a conversation about the way I like to learn: by being led by the hand.

It’s not for everyone, and in fact, everyone at the class said that they hated being taught this way.  They preferred a much less rigid school of learning.  Not me.  I have never liked being taught by ideas, abstractions or where there is room for interpretation – unless you are studying something like English literature that is.  However, when learning a skill, rigid learning is the only way to go.  You build the foundations first.  If you have solid foundations, the rest of the structure is far less likely to fall down and will stand for years to come.

Anyway, one of the attendees mentioned that if I liked formal teaching, then I would like George Collier, an Aberdeen artist who runs an Atelier in Aberdeen.  I had no idea such a thing existed here!  So I made enquiries, talked to George, and I’m going to see him at the beginning of the week. This is part of his studio below.

I’d heard of Ateliers before, but I only knew of them as workshops, and not as teaching anything in a specific manner. I didn’t realise that they followed the principles and techniques of the old masters, or that there was a resurgence in them (“the acquisition of fundamental art skills was neglected in much of 20th-century art school education, with the emphasis instead being on ideas and personal expression”).  I cetainly feel this last statement is very true indeed.  I love being at college, and it has pushed me in ways I couldn’t have imagined, but there is no formal teaching.  The emphasis is definitely on ideas and creativity rather than on skill.  When being assessed they will point out where you are going wrong, but they definitely don’t teach you and it was an issue I raised at department meetings.  I emphasised the need to learn basic drawing skills, which to be fair, the tutors said they would incorporate further into the next session’s curriculum, but it gives you an idea of where the emphasis lies.

From what I’ve read, this is also true of many other places.  I love painting, and I love expressing myself, but I have a basic lack of skill.  No question about it; and as I’m nearing going back to college, I feel the old anxieties coming back about not having the necessary skills.  I know I won’t get them from college, so this is the reason I’m signing up to the Atelier.

I will learn sight-size and comparative-size methods.  Sight-size will consist of Bargue drawings, cast drawing, cast painting and life drawing/painting.  They are produced through the careful measuring using strings, sticks, mirrors, levels and plumblines – the artist draws the subject so that, when viewed from the set vantage point, the drawing and the subject have exactly the same dimensions. This produces a form of realism based upon careful observations of nature with attention to detail.

Whereas, comparative-size methods consists of any method of drawing that involves making accurate measurements primarily using the naked eye. This  requires proportional accuracy, but allows the artist to vary the size of the image created. This is how I measure at the moment but without the great accuracy!

I know there are pros and cons of learning the Atelier method, but to be quite honest with you, I’m not a child or teenager and as such I will be able to take the good and bad from it and discern them both.  It will not produce a clone or slave to a particular style being taught because I’m old enough to know better, but I’m also not going to rebel just because I don’t like a particular style.  I will understand the reason why I’m doing it.  I don’t want to imitate the masters, but I want to learn from them.  I want to have the tools they had, without becoming a master forger.  I don’t want to be mechanical, but I know I have to do it to in order to equip me for the freedom later on, and I intend on getting absolutely everything I can from it.  Eeee, it’s so exciting, and I can’t wait!  I’d love to hear your thoughts, positive and negative on this subject.