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I’m learning to give up my ego, let pieces teach me what they need to teach me, and move on. The only way through is through unrelenting practice. The biggest thing I’m learning about art is: there’s no room for perfectionism. I will say that the Bargue course does require some explanation, which I found on YouTube at The DaVinci Initiative. Aristides learned using the Bargue method, as did some people whose names you may know: Pablo Picasso and Vincent Van Gogh, NBD. I am using Lessons in Classical Drawing by Juliette Aristides, as well as attempting the infamous course on learning to sight-size developed by Charles Bargue. So learn from my mistake, take the advice of people more skilled than I am, and start with a good, foundational drawing book. There will come a point in your process where you realize that if you aren’t a skilled draw-er, you can’t be a skilled paint-er. I dove right in with the painting, and in the last few weeks have had to backtrack a lot. If I had to start the process over, I’d start where the author-artists all agree is the actual beginning: the foundations of drawing. It is about how you, the artist, train yourself to see.
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Because unlike knitting, which is the same six stitches in an infinite arrangement, drawing is about what happens when you train your eyes and your hands to move in concert. Unlike learning to knit, which I did online using videos (, strongly recommend), I am learning to see the value of learning to draw and paint from a book. And like life in general, the only way out is through - in this case, through practice and diligence. However, amassing a pandemic’s worth of books about learning to draw and paint has given me a very good idea of what the artist-authors of these books all agree on, and it is: you’re going to genuinely, unequivocally, deeply suck at this before you get better. This is obviously false, although I use it to justify my hoard of art supplies. I have always believed, only half-facetiously, that the more art supplies and books one has, the better one is at art, no practice required. Wogglebug joined my household, and suddenly for the first time ever, I have a cat who is relentless about finding and murdering yarn. And I did, for approximately four months, until my niephlets FaceTimed me to let me know that their grandmother had kittens, they were taking two, and this one didn’t have a home. Finally, I thought, I would start cruising through my mountain of stashed wool and yarn. Somehow, the act of making textiles makes me feel closer to my ancestors after all, humans have been clothing ourselves since prehistory, and the method of spinning wool into yarn has not changed since the Neolithic. I leaned into the textile arts instead, learning to knit and weave and spin. I got my bachelor’s degree in Art History, and if there’s ever a subject that will solidify the idea that you have to be amazing at art to even start putting pencil or brush to paper, it’s Art History. I was a dancer growing up and somehow always felt that the visual arts (encompassing painting, drawing, etc.), were something I “wasn’t good at,” and - as a gifted Type A person who was good at most things she attempted - I should not bother with them. I have never thought of myself as an artist.