Watts Atelier Boot Camp 2016 - Part 3
"You're a serious dude."
BY ANTHONY ROSS
I'm not sure that I've gathered up all that I can say about what it was like to be at the Watts Atelier Boot camp, but I'm ready to write this anyhow. It was definitely a boot camp, with long hours of drawing and painting each day. The schedule went like this:
So at least six hours of the day was spent on drawing or painting, if you intended the uninstructed model time from 7 pm - 10 pm each night, which I did. Some days, it was 9 hours of executing artwork, but most days we had a three hour demo where the teacher would paint for us and we could watch, ask questions and take photos of their process. Here's a process and final image of one of the demos.
I found it most valuable when a teacher would draw on my pad or paint on my canvas directly. Whether over my previous drawing or not, it was great to watch them articulate their visual language so fluently. Jeff Watts talks the most out of the teachers and he is fun to listen to because of it. Though, after simply watching the other instructors draw or paint without verbal speech, I came to realize that when I go back to watching Jeff drawing or painting on the online school, I will be muting it on and off to see it without the verbal. After all, this is a visual language, and I picked up on so much that isn't able to be said. I think the talking distracts from my observation of what is happening on the page and all that I can learn from just watching that, which is lots. Verbalizing it can both give it clarity and confusion. Good to have both, but nice to be able to have either/or when you like, as the online school gives the option to.
After half the course was over, I could feel the beautiful sensation of excited learning. It was really great to have these eight days structured with waking up, meditating, doing yoga and sometimes getting some groceries in the morning. Later, sleeping in. Then, going to class for 9:30 am or 10:00 am and working til 1:00 pm. Having a good lunch break and talking with others, about art, mostly. Working from 2:30 pm to 5:30 pm and then having a dinner and break to go back to my hotel, which was a short walk, and coming back to class for drawing at 7:00 pm. The break time was short and often lead to me doing little errands between them in a stream line manner, like cleaning my hotel room, getting ready for the next class, or eating, checking emails.
The teachers were incredibly kind with their time and energy. Jeff showed us his personal studio one afternoon and a new book he's working on. Each teacher took a look through my portfolio, offering all kinds of different advice and things they saw that were good and bad with my work. It was also really great to be able to walk around to see what the more skilled artists around me were doing on their pictures, and take that understanding back to my work a moment later. Basically I finished the course with a notepad of notes and all kinds of pointers on what not to do. For the amount there is to learn, there are certain ways of doing things that will greater benefit me than others. These are things that I picked up on that I will now be applying to how I train in the arts.
Jeff and I talked about some things like Alan Watts and working on big projects. He said I have a lot of the right things in place, and it's time to bring them all together into a working combination. There was a lot of things that I felt I could have asked him that I didn't, before and after the boot camp. It's an interesting situation when you are with someone for only a short amount of time and they have only so much energy to spread around to the students of the entire workshop, plus all the other things they have going on outside of class. One of the last things Jeff said to me before I left the Atelier was about how he knew there was a lot more behind everything that we briefly discussed, from meditation to the projects I'm working on. It's just not possible to cover it all in eight days. I don't think there's any regret here, or things left unsaid. It's just the fact that sometimes the questioning is the answer, or the listening.
There would have been no way to go as deep into discussing the important parts of my life, which I take (often too seriously), in such a short amount of time. Philosophies and ways about things I knew resonated with Jeff from listening to him online and from our short conversations that I would have loved to discuss with him more. Often I just didn't have the words to ask, or to know how to begin talking about one of these philosophies that are close to my way of life. We related together as determined individuals, trying to find a sense of humor with it all, being too serious about doing good. Near the end, I mentioned to him how I felt generally pretty serious through out the course and he added to that, mentioning our odd open-ended interactions in and between classes when we would make small talk. He said, "You're a serious dude." I laughed. It was a good enough conclusion to our meeting. I don't know that I could have gotten anything more from the work shop than I did. It was a wonderful adventure of art and being around artists.
When I returned home, I continued to do a self-boot camp. My jobs allow the same kind of schedule of drawing and painting from 10:00 - 1:00 pm and 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm most days. Even on the extra day before coming home from San Diego, after the workshop ended, I still drew for six hours in my hotel. I've slowed down for a moment and need to pick up the pace again, I feel. Though, the intensive work I've done since April is probably something that I need to digest a bit so I can start up the momentum again with a smarter direction.
Now that I'm back I have been studying in ink for #Inktober2016. It's been fun, but I am not spending time on the key exercises from the Watts program. I'm looking to organize my time to go through that program, Schoolism classes, and Premium Proko exercises, as well as having the goings on and happenings of life. Sincere art training is a part of my life that I started in April. I've felt the grounded strength and thrill it gives me to work diligently on this craft. I will be continuing and sharing my work in various ways, but I've also witnessed the burn-out of working too hard and not having enough balance with the rest of all that is. There is also the egotistical building of an image on social networking and such that has distracted me more than helped my training, at times. This is just another thing to bring into perspective. To be an artist of life, to have that balance and equanimity with all things, is an art in and of itself. It's sometimes worth it to put the pencil down, knowing why you're doing so. Then you pick it up again and the admiration for it is present again.
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