Random Updates

1) I've quit my job as a cashier so I can save my tendons and hands for drawing and painting. My other jobs will give me more rest and be better for long-term art practice. One more week there.

2) My next Youtube video is going to be a long one. One hour of reviewing my figure lay-ins and the Watts Atelier live stream course I've been doing since October. Here's an image that won't be in the video and probably should be, because I think it's my best yet. Ha!

3) I ordered in smooth newsprint and realized how poorly my previous paper was taking my charcoal lines. It's like drawing on sand paper compared to the newsprint. The above drawing was my first on the new paper.

4) I received a lovely gift from Century Guild the other day for sending them an email with some kind words about how I don't mind the delay on my order of LE PATER by Alphonse Mucha. You never know how words may affect someone. I was very surprised and joyful in receiving it.

5) Only a couple weeks before I turn to the first month of my Frank Frazetta calendar. The art for the first four months before the new year is the classic Death Dealer. Nice to have Frazetta art on my wall and a new one every month!

6) Next term - the Winter term of Jan/Feb/Mar - I will be registering for some more live stream courses with Watts Atelier. For sure I will be auditing Drapery with Erik Gist, taking Head Lay-ins with Jeff Watts and maybe also taking Lucas Graciano's Foreshortened figure drawing. We'll see.

That's all for now.
Take care all you silly humans,
- Anthony

When I Learn - Life Drawing

I've started to notice incremental, tiny improvements in the way I think and how I draw. The acronym Jeff Watts often used is SIPDE. Scan, Identify, Predict, Decide, Execute. This way of drawing and thinking when drawing is much more effective than a chaotic, freestyle approach. Of course, there is also some practical use of not being rigid or of letting unplanned changes manifest themselves. It's a catch twenty two, in a sense.

Many people that I encounter draw in a messy style, without much thought about each stroke before, after and during the mark being made. That's not going to make the best drawing. Also, too much thinking will stop any happy accidents of occurring. A happy accident is something that turns out nice even though it wasn't a planned addition to the drawing. It may be a hand movement that wasn't what you were trying to do, but it looks better than what you aimed for. Or, at least, it looks good and you're glad it's done. It may have been less good than what you were aiming for, but perhaps what you visualized is not one hundred percent accurate for what was possible in that single stroke. Meaning, I might visualize something, draw something else that's good, but what I'm visualizing might still be better than what I drew. And in a way, I hope it always is, so I have an idea of how to improve my drawing no matter how good it is.

As I draw, my process of visualizing what I see, what I want to see and what I'm able to draw is all growing, mixing and changing. It's becoming more refined with each drawing session and with all the lessons I'm taking, digesting and applying into my daily practice. I gather a little more sensitivity and intelligence with my practice each day. How am I learning? What am I thinking? What state of mind am I in?

Listening, watching and playing. There's a whole movement to thought. All our changes of mind, constantly streaming through. As I draw, I have to be aware of this movement and see its benefits, but not get lost in it as one of its thoughts. There's a balance to observe and drawing is my tool to see it. My awareness contains these reflections, like a baby in a mother's womb. The mother is not the baby. She nurtures it and is ultimately the one who feeds it. We have to see how we feed our minds and what we feed, and know that our feeding is not the wholeness of what we are. The act that observes this feeding is whole, but the feeding itself, the movements of thought, are bit by bit. We can't think everything at once, just like we can't bring up the whole drawing at once. It is bit by bit, drawing the leg here and the head here.

We are an awareness that sees beyond patterns and recognition. We can see something new when we observe without an idea about the thing. Then we are learning. We are perceiving without the perceiver. When I draw from a live model, I know when I'm observing him without analyzing, or when I'm seeing the knowledge imposed over top. It is in experience. I can be present with the moving, living organism that exists there before me and put a mark down or I can be thinking about it in terms and knowledge. This Reilly abstraction here, this geometric shape there, this mark there... SIPDE. How is this mark? How is this representing what I remember about this anatomical form? Both are necessary to make a good drawing. We need to both see clearly and think clearly. They go together yet are in contradiction when relating this to making a beautiful piece of art, because beauty is not in the art, but in the one who sees.

Beauty, it seems to me, comes from a cultivated sense of awareness, clarity and care for everything. It does not actually have anything to do with a nice drawing. Beauty is inspired care. I'm learning art to have well cultivated aesthetics in how I see and in my execution of it. That's my knowledge and I can use those skills to express beauty as I feel it. However, just attending to nature as it is, including human beings, we are full. There is a completeness in observation that empowers oneself. It is both the mother and the baby nurturing each other. It is not one giving direction over another. It is a freedom in being beyond recognition. It is truly a miracle just to be alive and awareness as that. Freedom emptying into freedom, continuously.

- Anthony

Rant of Being Inspired

I'm so very excited to know that I'm learning how to draw and paint. It's an amazing gift and skill to have, to visually depict and see the world in its shapes and forms. I'm blessed to have wonderful teachers who inspire this joy of making art based on the world we relate in and to.

What I notice more and more is that my trips, outings, events and things I like to spend my time doing are geared toward wellness, joy and prosperity. And even when the thing itself isn't something that is directly related to these things, I find myself finding the little bits of wherever I am that compliment my inspiration and that keep me in tune with the truths and joys that I do flower in a little more each day.

I notice that the things I look for wherever I am and in whatever I'm doing are things that inspire both my art and my story. I'm a detective for these cues. Little gems appear here and there that signify new ideas, attractions and movements of energy that cut through the old, stale masks.

I treasure these cues and use them. I don't know what they are until I find them, but I play with what's there and here so I can stumble into them accidentally on purpose. I'm diving into strange lands and the powers of imagination and questions of what is true. It's my play time and responsibility to write this story. It's my joy and fulfillment to dive into my artwork with a growing sense of depth and care. I am these worlds that I'm creating. I am this art that I'm living. I am this exploration, this act of being, this permeating awareness of wisdom. I am these unknown cues of inspiration. I am an artist.

(Delayed post - missed Sunday)

https://www.patreon.com/whenanthonywas

Reflections on the Watts Atelier LIVE Stream Course - Week 3

Ha ha!

As for some consistency in writing... It's 8:00 PM on the Sunday that I'm supposed to have a blog post, because I've decided this, and I'm writing it.

I had some ideas about what to write about. These things will come later. I want to share something else right now and share it fresh, writing it directly right now.

I've started the live stream course with Jeffrey R. Watts, the master draftsman and painter. It's fantastic to watch him draw with a direct over head camera when he does the demos in the San Diego school and his ten minute warm ups with the model. His execution is masterful and so is his consistency in demoing with clarity, fullness of content and love of the arts. I don't know how much I've gotten so far from the course, because there's so much to learn and I can only apply so much of it at once when I'm drawing something. There are many things that will take years of study before I'm saying to myself, "Yes, I'm on the same page as him with this." For now, it's knowing that I'm not there in understanding the technique (Reilly abstractions being a big one) and I am encouraged to trust the practice and teaching that I will be guided there with my own proper efforts and consistent practice. He is so far beyond where I'm at, yet can both touch the state I'm in, encourage it to go further and yet sometimes make a cutting remark of pragmatic nature that sparks the desire to be more skillful, yet also is the kind of 'tough love' stab because it is just so hard to learn how to draw. That is good teaching.

We want to hear where we are at fault, even if it was our best effort at the time. He'll say, "I'm going to tell you when your drawing's lacking. C'mon, you can do a better edge than that. It seems you just phoned it in here and ran out of patience." I'll think to myself, "Damn it, I didn't run out of patience there. I tried to do that well." Yet, it's what I need to hear. The same way that my eye doesn't know how to see proper proportions, edges, values etc. is the same way that I have unconscious patterning of any kind and can't see when I'm in it. Maybe there was impatience there to some degree, but it wasn't conscious. Meaning, when I hear that remark, I think about how I must be as conscious as I can be when drawing and solving the visual problems. And even when I am as conscious as I can be, there will be things that I can not pick up on within myself about how I'm doing the drawing. It's like if you're gripping the pencil too tight and aren't paying attention to that. Eventually your hand hurts, but it's after you've been holding on for so long with that intensity. If someone points it out, you can notice, but in the meantime it will take a lot longer.

(figure master study - NOT done in 20 minutes)

There have been some technical issues with the Watts program so far. It is their first time doing it like this. I also think about the olden days when there was no internet and nobody this good at art who could teach me this way. Even not thinking about the difference between now and how it used to be, the price is just as good as if I were taking a term at the school, which is a very reasonable price for the education, and I am getting a direct overview of his demos and the ability to re-watch them and all the students' critiques who are taking the online course with me. It is really great. Another thing from watching the critiques and all these things is that I am getting an essence of how Jeff Watts looks at art practice. More of an essence than the online school gave me, though it's been a while since I've watched those videos. More than the knowledge he's imparting, or along with it, there is a mood or atmosphere that emanates from the way he approaches the craft. This is probably more instructive than a lot of the things he's saying, in some ways, because the things are repetitive in nature. This essence is a new thing, like creation itself. It's the art of the artist behind the art from the artist. I can't explain it, but it's truly transforming for me.

My practice continues and I realize how far I am from being able to draw my story in any articulate way. Frustration comes in as I try to draw a 20 minute lay-in and it takes me 40 minutes or more to get something that needs a ton of work and has a bunch of visible mistakes before Jeff sends me his critique. I'm also still healing so sometimes doing one lay-in is what I end up with and don't have time to re-draw one and fix my visible mistakes. Then I'm inspired by the words of Jeff that say, "Frustration will make you work harder, or quit." I'm realizing how I should practice more and feeling like I have barely started to do things the right way. I may be wrong or exaggerating that, because I've done a fair amount with my few months of 40 hours a week and whatever else before that. Those few months where I did that much artwork and studying was probably double than I had done in my entire life before that. Of course, I don't really know, but I never practiced with diligence before so it seems it could be close to the truth. So, this is where I'm at currently with my reflections on my practice of learning how to be a good representational artist.

Thanks for reading,
Anthony