Spring Term 2017 - 2/3 Months - May

This month's training ends a little early due to travels coming up. It will be an interesting taste of what it's like to take a complete break from my hours of drawing and painting since I've started doing 40 a week. I will be going to a Vipassana center to volunteer, where drawing (and most other activities) is not allowed for various reasons. I agree with these reasons, but also look forward to coming back and continuing my work as vigorously as I am now. The total hours I practiced this month, not including the next two days I'm still in town, is as follows:

1st week: 34

2nd week: 43.75

3rd week: 42.25

Total hours in May: 120

When I return, I have a few things I need to get through before July. In July I will start my Summer Term, and will be switching my studying schedule. I don't want to leave anything unfinished before this switch happens. Below is the list of my classes and how I have been keeping tabs on what I should do the next time I do this class. Meaning, whenever I finish a study session, I return to this word document and change the details so the next time I come to study that same class, I can read the notes and remember how to continue.

Here's what my current list looks like, which includes the details of what I need to do before July. The ones that I have to do before July are in italic with ** next to them.

SPRING TERM 2017 – APRIL/MAY/JUNE

Animation:

Complete – watch all Aaron Blaise animation videos

explore TV Paint

continue Marnie animation

**do a bi pedal walk cycle animation with only your paper sheet as reference, then look at his to compare when done

explore simplified animation of Gonzo with broken sword – anticipation and squashing

**watch final video in fundamentals – bi pedal run and animate it

play with bouncing ball and other shapes – moving simply around

watch TV paint tutorials on his youtube – play with the program more

Mark Schultz ink studies:

**Ink new picture I layed in in pencil and film it

Figure Phases – Watts Atelier:

do ovoid mannequins over or based on photo and art references

move on to spider-man mannequins – refer to athletic male photo ref to compare

Figure: Michael Hampton videos/book

**Complete video series and reflect on what matches in the book

- draw the images that Michael drew in the instruction to better understand where things are/how they are shaped – draw til you memorize them. ... will be torso front and back anatomy next term

- watch next lesson (week 6) --- **Finish all the videos

Figure Layins:

Watts student and instructor charcoal studies

(do block mannequins over top of layin reference.)

Head Phases – Watts Atelier:

move on to abstraction of the head – 3/4 version. Then front view.

go back and memory test asaro – sketch it

Schoolism – Creature Anatomy

**Complete Lessons and do as many assignments as possible

complete first lesson assignment – make gryphon human hybrid

create a bird dino hybrid – lesson 3 assignment. --**finish all the assignments

Watch fourth lesson. ---- **Finish all the videos

Go to kangaroo farm / pet store and sketch.

Drawing Fundamentals – Watts Atelier/E. Of Realism

-- set up still life – NOT plain objects, and draw it.

-- Draw statue from Cambodia in Watts construction method – do more block ins and lay ins of other selected/saved photographs – and Hardesty's references before moving on to next lesson

Majora's mask colour manipulation

Story Concept Design

**Complete All (project aspect) – move on to refining these ideas using storybeats and game-play studies

**(first part of project aspect) --- Secret stuff --- ;)

**(second part of project aspect)

study levels of video games – draw characters into them

Anatomy- Arms/Legs – Watts Atelier/Other References

**Complete illustrations of PDF images for end of June

**do posterior arm drawings – all layers and label anatomy

Study positioning of anatomy in the photos there – movement/function – difference in shape etc.

With extra time: draw from other watts pictures and other artists to study arms and legs with new knowledge, referencing your layered PSD images.

**Find out what the mislabeled muscles are in the Watts PDFs for Arms

Next are the various notes I took throughout the month, listed with the date I wrote them.

5.1.17

I've found, especially when developing original content for my personal projects, that it is best to do something in a session of three hours or so (a class) and then leave it for a week or two at least before looking at it. There's a much clearer perspective with that space to forget about it and come back fresh. With no deadlines to be met, it's definitely more beneficial to my practice.

5.11.17

I may need to do less classes next term, as some of the classes (like a Schoolism course) can be a lot to go through in only 3 months if I am only getting 3 hours of it in per week. It is good to have space for the other hours of the week to be for homework on the week's classes. (I couldn't manage to give myself less classes as far as I have planned, so I might just have to go with ten as I did this term.)

A point and shoot camera was a really wonderful investment. Great for shooting quick reference while out and about, and for documenting artwork. Since I post an update every five days on Facebook, I reset my camera's memory card every five days. So I have the previous days' worth of artwork to flip through in my display screen until I upload it. Good for checking out what I've done most recently, wherever I am, when I have my camera with me.

Feeling like I need to study even more. I imagine this sense that I think people have when they are at University and studying all the time for whatever they're taking. Maybe I am doing as much as these people I imagine, but don't feel that way still. I just wonder when I'll produce artwork I'm really proud of, I guess. I appreciated what J.A.W. Cooper said in her Schoolism interview about what resonates for you from another artist's work is not the work itself, but the essence. It's true and I knew that, but the words for it were good and I think somehow I need to play with how that can be captured more in all my studies, not just specifically master studies.

I did some writing the other day and that was a nice change. Hadn't written in some time and I think it's part of the whole. A necessary aspect of expressing that will only add strength to my visual artistry. Words are symbols after all.

I do feel connections happening with the various principles and lessons I'm studying. I think I get what Erik Gist talked about in a Friday Night Live when he said something like: you have to be kind of dumb to learn how to draw, because you just have to do it over and over again til things click. I think I need more conscious practice, which I will get as I keep going, but some clicking is happening and it is my only evidence that I'm actually getting somewhere with all these hours of drawing. Sneaky, invisible, mental evidence.

5.12.17

The biggest change I've found in my drawing is the amount I think about what I'm doing. I never used to do that. It was just about drawing what I saw and intuitively playing and doodling on the paper. Now I'm beginning to have a knowledge base on things like anatomy, lighting, construction, values, edges, proportion, colour, calligraphy, composition and many more concepts to pull from. So the more you know, the more you are thinking. Certain concepts will begin to be second nature, but there will always be more things to think about that I'm not intuitive with yet, I imagine. I also see that the more I learn these techniques, the more I will be able to explore the subject matter I want to express directly and have less concern about whether or not I can approach it with my skill set. With the skills in place, I can speak. These skills will always be refining, but there are thresholds to reach that will change the way the refining is approached and explored.

It's hard to judge one's own work. Sometimes my old paintings look really good and other times I see what could be better, or think I do. Can't really tell what perspective is accurate, if one is. The paradox of striving to be better, but also being content with the feeling that everything is perfect as is right now.

5.13.17

What is true is that I am using my time much more wisely. When I have a day of no work, it is a day of full study in art. It feels good to do this much work and I feel like I'm improving, plus I'm enjoying it. Watching an occasional anime show or animation is good, because the story-telling of it reminds me what I'm learning academically for and what I can do with my skills.

I feel that I'm getting a better handle on how I can teach myself with these online resources. I am thankful for these incredible resources that I have today to learn on my own. I am seeing the path clearer and how I can walk it. Sometime in the future I will sign up for some critiqued versions of the online schools and get some additional, personal reviews on my art practice, rather than just my own perception of it. Mostly thinking that I'll go with the 'Watts trained professional' monthly critique version of their online school, or also go to a Schoolism work shop to meet some artists again there and get some feedback on things.

I think these notes will be great in times when the going gets tough and I feel like giving up on continuing my art. Who knows when that might be, but I can look back at these notes and remind myself of all the waves I went through to get to where I am, and how and why I continued. Writings are similar to artwork, as an art form, in that it is good to come back weeks later and get a fresh look at what you've just expressed on paper.

It's nice to have a book of something, like Figure Invention by Michael Hampton, but also have videos to go along with it. You get a better sense of how you are supposed to go about learning and extracting the information that's in the book. When you hear the teacher in audio/video, it becomes easier to digest their approach so you can understand what it is that got them to the point where they were confident to make a book on the subject. You get to know the material and the author better. Nice to have both to bounce off each other. It's similar to having gone to Watts Atelier and also taking the online school. Going there helped me understand how they intended their lessons to be approached and learned.

5.20.17

I like to imagine that there will be amazing opportunities with the skill set I am developping. Things that are so good I can't even imagine them being true. Hayao Miyazaki is hiring animators and background designers to work on his next film. I would highly consider going to Japan to work on that if I had the skills developed. It makes me want to be ready for whatever else may be that 'inspiring of a thought' for me to take action on in the future.

I feel I am developing and am excited to move on to my next term of classes and continue working on my story concepts and my skills. Still noticing ways I can live better while practicing lots too. It's definitely a new thing to approach drawing in this way, and I'm adjusting constantly as I move forward on this changing course of learning.

~~~ Stay tuned for more.
On Facebook I share pictures of my practice sessions every 5 days.

On Twitter I share a piece of art by another artist that inspires me every 5 days.

On Youtube I share a video on the 1st and 15th of each month that shows my practice in action.

My next video will be on the 15th.

Thanks for reading,
- Anthony R.

Spring Term 2017 - 1/3 Months - April

I started this month with a new goal of doing 40 hours of drawing and painting practice per week, including watching instruction and also developing visual content for personal projects. The total hours I practiced, give or take one or two since I am not finished with today's work, is as follows:

1st week: 44.25

2nd week: 42

3rd week: 40

4th week: 27.5

Total hours in April: 153.75

Throughout the month, I wrote down notes in a word document about things I realized and things to pay attention to as I continue training. Rather than doing a longer summary of this month's practice, collecting these notes and writing something based on them, I will share these notes as they were written. In this way, they may speak clearer to the truth relating to my observations on my way to being a more proficient artist. Having taken these notes at the time that they were most clear to me, and re-reading them now is a wonderful, effective way to review many aspects of training, and re-consider these points as I move into the next month. There are 2 months to go in my Spring Term. Meaning, I will continue the same classes until then. Overall, I feel it was a good first month and I will continue this challenge of forty hours a week.

NOTES:

- Wasting time by biking to get pretzels and wandering about for too long looking for a place to sit and draw. Just sit and draw. It's not that you don't enjoy the scenery, but you actually enjoy it more when you do what you came there to do, and also drawing is observing the scenery, so you can enjoy it. Choose a spot and use it – time and space.

- Watching Youtube videos – Watts Atelier live – AFTER it's live, so I can watch it at 2X speed, hearing Jeff talk even faster and seeing the painting quicker too. Gather more information in less time, more effective, especially when my questions on the chat are ignored.

- At least an equal balance between drawing/painting and writing story content.

- Being conscious of the subtleties of procrastination. What's useful. How to study. Looking at images, really looking at them and understanding how you can use the visual ideas in your own studying/artwork, or just scrolling by like a TV show, getting nothing from it and being like a zombie?

- Learning anatomy – just writing the names unconsciously – reading the information about it and not absorbing anything, or looking and putting the knowledge into a place in your mind that has a practicality for execution, not just a bunch of words.

- Social media – has its place – sharing in an easy to do way, not caring much about tags/wording etc – details that could be thought about way too much and have little importance, and take time.

- Not wasting a moment. Get home from work. Start work. No sitting around, lazing about eating or doing stuff that's brainless/heartless.

- Head Drawing:

After drawing a few heads that didn't turn out so well one day, from photo reference, I realized that I really shouldn't be drawing heads at all yet. It's okay to do once in a while, but the Watts Atelier program lays out steps to progress there through Phase I to III. It's not til Phase III that you draw from photo reference. I am still at the skull in learning the fundamental concepts of what the head drawing involves. The skull is in Phase I and barely that far into it. I should spend my time learning these tools that will help me draw the head so I can get way more from drawing photographs when I get to it, in Phase III. So my head drawing class has been transformed into more of a head fundamentals class until I'm ready to draw from photographs, though I might do that occasionally still, but less than I have been.

- Really getting a better sense of watching every step I make and if I'm doing it properly or not. In all these ways:
How I hold the pencil.

Moving from my shoulder when I draw and not the wrist or forearm.

Applying the mantra: scan, identify predict, decide, execute with every move on the paper, and not simply drawing in a sketchy, uncontrolled manner expecting something good to happen as a result.

Paying attention to why I'm drawing/studying what I'm studying, and if it's the most effective way to digest the material and improve as an artist.

When I see something that I'm doing wrong in this way, by paying attention to the way I'm doing it, I can improve it by changing upon it, doing it differently.

- Good to look at others' artwork occasionally, but once every five days is enough, not to get carried away by the images and procrastinate on the work needed to make your own as good.
(Edit: I am sharing an artwork that inspires me every five days on Twitter: @whenanthonywas)

- Always keep your charcoal pencils sharpened when you end a session. Don't start a session with dull pencils that need sharpening. Prepare ahead of time, when you finish the previous session.

Always keep a few pencils sharpened.

- When putting in 40 hours a week, keep your supplies stocked. When doing the Watts Atelier method of practicing, stock up on Conte 1710 B pencils, smooth newsprint, razor blades and kneaded erasers.

4.13.17

- 40 hours a week is a perfect number of hours to push myself. Play the edge but not go over.

I feel less de-motivated than I have about the long-term-ness of my practice now that I'm doing a lot more of it. I'm too busy practicing to think about things like how difficult it is and how much practice I have to do to. And when I do think about how much there is to do, I'm inspired to do it, because I'm in the midst of it and am connecting things I'm learning with other aspects of it and it's awesome.

- Good to do a few outings as breaks a week, including my part time jobs as outings. Acro yoga and contact improvisation dance are my outings and good exercise to get away from art practice.

- I've changed my curriculum mid-way through this second week. I finished the Schoolism course Essentials of Realism, but I want to review it and do the exercises that were in it more than I have. I also want to continue learning from another Schoolism course though. So I signed up for Creature Anatomy and changed my courses to be like this:

Animation – I wanted to dedicate a whole class to this, instead of joining it with geometrical shapes and fundamentals

Inking Master studies – for now that is what I'm going to work off of more than anything else – until the Watts Atelier releases their inking class online

Figure Fundamentals – Studying from the Watts Atelier online program

Watts Figure Studies – Just like studying heads from photographs, I'm not at the point where they do that in the Watts program, so I'm not getting as much as I can out of it. Still good to do since I'm working on anatomy, but I think it's a better idea for now to stick with studying quick sketch and charcoal drawings of Watts students and teachers, instead of from photo reference.

Head Drawing Fundamentals – Studying from the Watts Atelier online program

Schoolism – Creature Anatomy

Still Life – Drawing Fundamentals (Watts Atelier and Essentials of Realism exercises)

Character Design – In here I will include head drawing practice from photographs, using them to create characters for my story. As I explained before, I really shouldn't be drawing heads yet if I go according to the Watts Atelier curriculum. So I will go more for the information rather than the detailed realism and use both photos and sketching at cafes and from life to design characters.

Environment Design – Urban sketching/plein air/master studies and using specific reference for environments in my story which need developing
(Edit: This class has turned into a specific visual development aspect of my personal project, which does not include urban sketching, master studies or plein air. It is more montage/imagination based.)

Anatomy- Arms/Legs – Watts Atelier/Other References

This is 10 classes. If I do 6 hours a day, which comes to 42 hours in a week, then I can do two classes a day of 3 hours each and my 10 classes are complete in 5 of those days, and 2 days are totally free to do homework/additional work on those classes. Of course I may not get 6 hours in everyday, but may have to do more than six some days and less on other days. And 42 hours is 2 over what I'm aiming at, so that's fine too.

(And this class is in there somewhere too: Figure Books: Marvel and Hampton)

I removed painting things, other than digital which I'll be using for Essentials of Realism and still life studies or maybe other things too. I will pick up gouache again in July.
(Edit: I have started a list of classes I would like to transition to next term. Nothing confirmed yet, as I continue to expand on my ideas of what is most beneficial and what I'm ready to move in to in my training.)

- Trusting my teachers. I have good instructors to listen to. I should trust that the information I need, whether learning a new animation software or what have you will be linked or shared by the instructor in some way and that I can get the information not too far from the online programs they have set up. This happened with TV Paint, where it's what Aaron Blaise uses on his animation course, and I was looking for tutorials on it in OTHER places, but when I went to his Youtube to see if he had anything, he definitely did. Stay close to the source, in other words.

- My meditation practice of 2 hours a day is so helpful in maintaining the balanced and detached perspective on life and the understanding of what I'm pursuing and why I'm practicing art as I am. It is essential to this art training in indescribable ways.

4.21.17

- Difficult to make goals for yourself, like, being proficient at figure drawing in six months, when you are not sure what level of proficiency you have to reach – how far it is – how much work it is to get there – etc. That's where a teacher could point out how realistic that is. Still, not bad to set the goals and aim for them even if not knowing the details about how they can or can't be accomplished.

- Have to stay watchful of procrastination. Do I need sleep, or am I just being habitually lazy? Such things are there and we must understand them so we're not slaves to our own patterns of laziness.

4.25.17

I have started to do a sketchbook entitled the Snow-run sketchbook. Snow-run is the title, because it is a sketchbook in which I draw something every day that I would run naked in the snow to see. It is borrowed from Iain McCaig, as a thing to do so that one day you can open it page by page and see who you are and what you are meant to show the world, when your skills are good enough to draw them again, how they are meant to be. I have been doing these drawings late at night, after usual art training and other daily activity hours. It is the best time to do it, I feel, because I am more likely to have the inspiration to draw something after a full day, rather than first thing in the morning, or even mid-day when I am in the middle of other things. I can think about it during the day and think of what I would like to run out naked in the snow to see. It is also part of Iain's description, in that he says, “something you'd stay up late to see,” or something along those lines. Meaning, if I were to stay up late to run out and see this thing, I might as well stay up late and draw it. It seems to fit the context. I'm not sure, sometimes, what I would like to see. In these cases, I go with what I would run out to experience, to feel and draw more the expression of that feeling rather than a conditional thing I am expecting or craving to reach. You have to dig deep down for these drawings, to find the pure thing, and not just something that is somewhat cool, that you really wouldn't run out naked in the snow to see.

~~~ Stay tuned for more.
On Facebook I share pictures of my practice sessions every 5 days.

On Twitter I share a piece of art by another artist that inspires me every 5 days.

On Youtube I share a video on the 1st and 15th of each month that shows my practice in action.

Thanks for reading,
- Anthony R.

Anniversary Reflection - One Year of Art Training

Just over a year ago. Two days over in fact, I signed up for the online art program by Watts Atelier. www.wattsatelier.com. It was April 1st, 2016 when I began my traditional training as a representational artist. I dove into the program and watched many videos, with little practicing. Of course I was also doing that with Schoolism courses, and it took me a while to realize that the practicing of art is essential to developing skills, not just listening to lectures about it.

A month or two later, I signed up for a workshop in San Diego to go meet Jeffrey R. Watts and the other instructors at the brick and mortar school. This made me want to practice more, to have some skills when I got to the workshop and get the most out of the instruction. This attitude of getting really good to supposedly impress the instructors in some sense was unrealistic. Not that I really was going for impressing them, but I was expecting growth that just doesn't happen in a summer of beginning this approach to drawing.

As I continued, I realized the effort needed to develop these skills that I had never tried to develop. My inspiration continued from the content I gathered from Watts Atelier, both for free on Youtube and from the month of taking the online program. The respect I had for these teachers and the work they must have put in to get as good as they are also expanded as I tried to do this myself. The balance of life's other activities and the practice and learning of art had to be understood and reflected on over and over. I've done a lot of pointless practicing and useless time spent browsing artwork or skimming over lessons without doing the necessary practice to actually learn these. This was done before this last year of practicing, but also during this last year when I was learning how to train in art properly.

Some of these things became clearer after the workshop with the advice from the instructors, like how to navigate the variety of things that can be drawn for practice, and to spend time on the right things to be a well rounded artist with a long-term progression in mind. In other ways, this wasn't entirely clear after the workshop, because it needs practice to be put into practice. The understanding of how to comes with the doing, and there's no real answer to how to navigate this learning, even now. It's a constant metamorphosis of learning how to learn this content, but I have some much better ideas after trial and error. Even with the guidance of the Watts team and other artist talks I've listened to, one has to figure out how to do it, especially without daily contact and guidance with one of these teachers who has already gone through these trials. Even then, it's up to one's own discretion.

I feel that I've experienced many of the symptoms of beginning a serious art discipline that Jeff Watts lists as commonalities for students in their early year development, spoken of in his inspiring Youtube video: How to Train to Become a Working Professional Artist. It's been good to have that talk to reference, to understand that I'm not different than other beginners when it comes to learning how to spend your time and energy wisely, schedule your training and follow through with the practice. I think the approach the Watts school takes with 3 hour training sessions/classes, with 20 minutes of drawing/painting and then a 10 minute break, repeated, is beneficial for focusing, memorizing and committing to the work. After jumping around with ways of creating practice time, like an hour and a half session, or 1 hour sessions, or no sessions and just working whenever I can, I've returned to the 3 hour Watts way and found it is best.

One thing I've realized too is how to be balanced and do a lot of work. This is also a changing understanding, but something that I am developing is a detached intensity. It is not healthy to get frustrated over lack of practicing, but it is not going to help your skills if you don't practice at all. It also doesn't help to be frustrated and go into your practice with that mind set, thinking about how you need to do more and losing your attention on the task at hand, which is your practice. A wise man needs to be calm among the chaos. The chaos is learning art. The wisdom is doing so with a deep sense of balance and a view of timeless practice, all the while scheduling the sessions of time to develop this. It is this long term, or eternal (timeless) view of practice that is necessary, but the understanding and urgency to do it today that makes for healthy work. Something that helped with this was spending some of the time doing sketches for fun, inventing imaginative work and working on personal projects. The more playful, 'do whatever you feel like' work is just as important for balancing the academic work. It has helped me have more fun so I can keep learning and see where my skills are lacking. It inspires you to do the academic work and makes you understand why you're doing it, which is usually to express yourself in an authentic way, tell stories and create worlds.

In January I started to make Youtube videos, so that there will be a consistent video log of my development. The videos are not tutorials by any means, though at some point they could go there. I'm learning from Schoolism, Watts Atelier, Proko and Aaron Blaise, so I'm going to reference those to people wanting to learn, rather than teaching in videos on the web. It will be interesting to see the many videos I make (2 per month) as years go by. It may be an inspiration for someone in the future who is beginning to go through all this practice like I am. I'm at a point now where I feel I can see my mistakes as I make them, and therefore am beginning to learn quicker. It is good to have this understanding and you'll see it in the videos as I continue.

As last April started my real training, this April is considered to be an anniversary for my art. It is now that I begin with more vigor and have the goal to do 40 hours a week of training. Half of it will be learning academically and the other half will be creating worlds of my own for my personal story. Yesterday I came across an old blog by Stan Prokopenko, who now teaches on Proko.com and was trained at the Watts Atelier. The blog post went through every year he was at the school, and what classes he took. It described in a short paragraph what he had learned and what was a good or bad choice in how he directed his training at this time. It made me hopeful in the sense that his first year of training was slower than the other years. He practiced more as he continued, and I feel the same desire to do so, knowing that it's the only way to get as good as I need/want to be to express the stories I write in an authentic, beautiful way.

At the same time, balance is needed. It's a greater skill to learn how to work 40 hours a week on art while being aware and content, rather than losing your mind and your sense of well being through frustration in training, or guilt with "not good enough, need to practice more." I don't have the bad job I need to get out of, or the living conditions that are determining factors for some people on why they want to do something else with their time. They do it to escape current conditions and this can often lead to unbalanced attachment to the thing they use as escape. My conditions are perfect when I'm peaceful with them. I understand this more and more in my experience, with wisdom. To consistently do something to improve, but remain peaceful and unconditional with it is a skill to appreciate. I'm basically understanding what a path of mastery is and how to walk it, using art as my main context. I also have a passion project of a story to write and it needs nice pictures to give it more life.

I continue my training with a 3 month plan in mind. Every 3 months I will switch 'courses,' as if I am taking a slightly longer term at Watts Atelier. (They do 2 and a half month terms there.) I will incorporate each class into a 3 hour session once a week. Just to be clear, I am not taking classes other than studying online and from books. In this way, I'm getting lessons, but have to self-direct my training and motivate myself without guidance or a determined 'class' to attend each week. In this way, while I work two part time jobs and other things happen, my self-taught 3 hour classes won't necessarily fall on the same day every week, and they may have to be divided into more than one session (two 1.5 hour sessions for example) if needed. Each course title is based off Watts Atelier courses that they teach at their school, as well as set up to work with what programs I am currently in online and the resources I have available to teach myself. The classes are divided based on the skill level I feel I currently have, what I need to practice and how to be well rounded in portrait, landscape, still life and figure. They are based off this previous year's understanding of how to learn and practice on a day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year (one year so far) basis.

The courses are as follows, listed with the details of what I'm using to train in these areas.

1. Gouache Portrait Painting
(Once a week, paint a gouache portrait in monochrome and/or watch demos on it)
- Schoolism class: Realistic Portraits by Jason Seiler
- Painting videos on Watts Atelier Youtube in Gouache
- (perhaps Gouache online course on Watts Atelier school)

2. Head Drawing and 20 minute head layins
(Once a week, do head layins (20 minutes each) or a longer (3 hour) head drawing from photo reference or a model (friend/local life drawing class))
- Schoolism class: Realistic Portraits by Jason Seiler

3. Figure Drawing - Design and Invention
(Once a week, study figure drawing from books and online courses)
- Figure Drawing (book) by Michael Hampton
- Force (book) by Michael D. Mattesi
- Gesture Drawing (book) by Alex Woo (received at Schoolism Live workshop)
- How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way (Stan Lee)
- Watts Atelier online school
- Other (Youtube etc.)

4. Intro to Tonal Drawing and Animation
(Once a week, work on fundamental geometrical shapes/2 value construction)
- Watts Atelier Fundamentals Phase I and II content - online school
- Aaron Blaise lessons and begin animating with simple shapes

5. Head Fundamentals
(Once a week, work on head fundamentals)
- Watts Atelier Head Phases I and II online school
- Other (Andrew Loomis books)

6. Inking Essentials
(Once a week, study inking from other artists)
-Mark Schultz
-Robert Watts
-Watts Atelier inking class (when it comes out)

7. Anatomy of Arms and Legs
(Once a week, study anatomy of arms and legs)
- Watts Atelier
- Aaron Blaise
- Proko
- Other

8. Basics of Perspective
(Once a week, study the basics of perspective)
- Ernest Norling books
- Scott Roberston Youtube
- Watts Atelier and other

9. Still Life monochrome painting in gouache
(Once a week, paint a still life in gouache - photo or observed from life)
- Watts Atelier

10. Figure Drawing and 20 minute figure layins
(Once a week, draw figures from photo reference or life)

(The following classes are associated more with inventing and creating the worlds of my story)

11. Plein air/Urban sketching and invention
(Once a week, observe nature and use local environments to develop and create your own)

12. Level/Puzzle/Game Design
(Once a week, study game level design and perspectives and develop your own.)

13. Storyboarding/Comics
(Once a week, study existing comics, storyboards and develop your story's layout)

14. Creature and Character  Design
(Once a week, develop your story's creatures and characters and study other artists' work)

As Stan Prokopenko's blog post (and many other things) guided me to start this structure of classes, and document it as I learn, so may these blog posts guide another learning artist to practice and develop the skills to live a healthy, balanced life on the path of mastery.

Wish me luck!

- Anthony

Teachers are sparks, sparks are seeds and seeds are trees

BY ANTHONY ROSS

What I think a good teacher is, is a spark.  Like a fire, a spark can ignite something moving, that takes on a flame of its own and a movement or energy of its own.  The momentum gets started.  What is momentum of a quality.  What is it to be sparked by another person, so that something in them inspires something in you or through you?  So that you can begin to move in a new way and so that the spark may flower into a fire of its own that is sufficient and uniquely your own.

Thus the teacher, with a seed, launches an inspiration for you to water this seed yourself.  As you water it, the seed will eventually become a tree that can bear fruit, and a fruited tree is unique to itself and inevitably a seed bringer for others like it.  The seed also brings the essence of the tree into being at the moment it calls for water.  That to which it inspires, is a spark.  It brings more of the same, with change.

What kinds of seeds are you attracted to?  These are the desires of our lives.  The momentous qualities that we accept or deny as an infusion into what we embody in our day to day lives.  What is it that transforms us into a more beautiful, graceful individual(s)? These sparks, the very existence of them, inspire me, and today I thought about what it is that these are in themselves.

A spark like this comes in many forms.  One form is words.  One can express words from their quality or essence of energy that expresses these words.  The words themselves can be picked up in many ways, and sometimes in a way that is a powerful energetic change.  Someone speaks in a way that brings light to something you knew, but couldn't place into words.  The vocabulary of another can acknowledge the place your own has in the ability to understand and express your understandings, as they are recognized.  You can see the power of words in another only because you have different or similar language in expressing the similar but different understandings within yourself.

In this way, sparks are all around us, everywhere we have a sense. The acknowledgement of them is a tool of reflecting on what it is they are for oneself.  There's a sense of learning about yourself in relationship with yourself with everything you also relate to.  That's always transforming and it is in this place that I acknowledge the tremendous beauty in discovering the sparks that help discover and uncover my true Self.

#writing #reading #blogging #books
Brain Pickings and Wonder

"A blog, compared to a book, may be read consistently for a long time."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

BY ANTHONY ROSS

I love books.  I have a collection of books I haven't read, and I'm sure that collection will grow as I read them, and other books that show up at random occasions.  Books are special things, and as much as they do fall under the analogy of 'things that spoil as quickly as a banana on the shelf,' they have great wonder and meaning.

A blog, compared to a book, may be read consistently for a long time.  Such as the 'blog' of Maria Popova, 'Brain Pickings.'  Brain Pickings is a wonderful resource of highlights and quick notes on books of all kinds, primarily what falls under the tab of Creativity, Design, Science, History, Psychology and Art.  I don't read it daily anymore, but often will go rummaging through pages and pages in a short binge session, due to her sophisticated linking and 'mind' mapping of the website's articles.

Books though, will never be conquered.  Even Maria Popova, who doesn't write books, reads them consistently.  They are mini sacred treasures, full of wealth of clarification that a blog post and most definitely a social media post cannot prescribe.  That's not to say that simplicity isn't a factor.  Some things can be stated with little words, others may take a thousand and it is still not enough.  Even the same thing may be fine in one thousand words for one person, and two to another.  The good thing is that we have these options there for us whenever we need them.  I salute readers and writers alike and look forward to more of it myself.

I like Brain Pickings for what it's theme is.  Articles about books and interviews, podcasts etc.  She doesn't write much outside of what the article itself is about, but connects links to other things like it, so that the endless reading can continue.  That's nice, but it's also nice to, as a writer, write whatever it is I feel like.  It may not be as consistent, but it develops things for me.  In Artist of Life by Bruce Lee, there is an essay that is one page long.  It was found between two pages, tucked into Alan Watts's book, 'This Is It.' Bruce Lee wrote it while reading, and then years later it was taken out, typed out and put in a book.  That's a treasure.  I bought the book, 'Artist of Life,' after reading about it on Brain Pickings.

#studies #adventure #sketch
My first plein air excursion in gouache

"...bring out my gouache box, brushes, and paints."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

BY ANTHONY ROSS

Yesterday I sat on a cold bench at the beach.  It was a cement step, and I opened up my bag of goodies to bring out my gouache box, brushes, and paints.

It was my first outing with gouache paints and with this little box.  It worked pretty well, tight around my waist, with the little easel holding a small illustration board of 2.5 " X 3.5 ".

The sunset was beautiful, and changing all the time, but I was interested in the house complexes near by the water.  This wasn't as vivid as the sunset, but had some appeal.  I lost my smallest brush, so painted with a bit of a thicker brush than I would have liked on this small canvas.

And my finished painting after an hour and a half of sitting.

#context #adventure
Questions That Answer

"My questions lead me to all kinds of discoveries about my own pursuits in art."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

BY ANTHONY ROSS

This morning I went on James Gurney's blog, 'Gurney Journey.' I watched a video of him painting a tire store in the super moon.  It was inspiring in many ways.  His playful energy and dedication to his craft of painting on such a consistent basis are awesome.  It's nice to have people who exemplify certain qualities through whatever it is they do.  The art, and the blog he posts on on a daily basis is the version of his life that we get to see.  It's a pleasure to have these bits of expression in all kinds of ways through out the internet.  They allow us as curators of content to jump back from the computer into other realms of play and then return to it and share it.  Obviously there's stuff to create on the computer itself, but you get the point.

I thought about what questions I might ask James, since I have the ability to do so.  He answers questions on his blog, and so with the amazing technology, I can connect with James Gurney through virtual space.  I'm able to ask this fantastic artist anything I want and he will likely respond with some kind of answer.  It's tough, when the options are open.  My questions lead me to all kinds of discoveries about my own pursuits in art.  The questions gave me answers before asking, and more questions to answer in the contemplation of them.  I got a lot out of thinking about what I would ask this inspiring artist.

In the end, I did ask a question.  A simple one regarding how long it takes him to do a study.  I had wanted to ask about his beginnings as a painter, but the question isn't formulated yet.  It made me contemplate mine and learn from that, and that was enough for today.  The fact is that there are too many things to say.  This naturally brought me to reflecting on my art training at the Watts Atelier.  A teacher like Jeff Watts or the others there would be able to cover much more of what it is to learn to be a representational artist of a high level, like James Gurney.  Over the internet I can just get a short answer, or even a long short answer.  It's just not the same as a direct connecting and correlating with someone in person.  It's not the same to ask the questions online, so the questions have to be different.  The best part is that it's an option, and that there are amazing people sharing amazing things relating to every topic there is.  It's the wonder of the world that Gurney inspires me to honour in myself.  It's these relationships that you can use to reflect upon for yourself.  It's to ask the question of, "What question would I ask?"  There's your answer.

James Gurney in his studio.

#organize #philosophy
The seeing of separation

"This is a message of the quiet world."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

BY ANTHONY ROSS

We live in an interesting time for publication.  Anyone can make anything and put it in a virtual space that's open and shared everywhere.  It's becoming a world that is less and less separate, from mentality to information.  I think it is in the same way that we are becoming less separate that the separation is becoming more evident.  The awareness of it is coming into us and so it is everywhere on the news, internet and wherever the loudest voices are.  The quiet world, the one that is completely shared, doesn't have to announce itself.  It is easier to show off and be noticed than it is to not show off and be noticed.  The loudness of the world is only half of the whole.  The quiet world is more powerful, but less often on stage to the larger audience.

We're all tired of seeing the same old things.  The internet, though a valuable tool for sharing, has more spam than good.  It is an expression which the loud and quiet worlds both use.  The quiet videos may not have as many views, but can change somebody's life for ever more.  The loud videos speak of change, or improvement, but often are skewed in their vision.  They do not see the whole.  They do not see the way that things are is because of the way they are.

The quiet world, knowing that reality changes on observation, sits and is still.  The quiet people give the universe at large it's say, and stop trying to control it with tools.  Thus their world functions in little chaos, because it is the way of the world, not the way of the people who misunderstand themselves and what they are.  They think they're separate from the world, but are not.  They announce this separation to anyone they can, because they are insecure about their idea.  It has to be proved, or else they would be running in circles in life.  This is what they are doing, unconscious people, but they have built ideas around as a false sense of stability.  If only clouds had walls around them, and we would never have rain.  It is not for us to decide how the laws of nature accord, it is for us to accord as them.  Otherwise, separation is, and conflict continues.  This is a message of the quiet world.

#play#philosophy#writing
The child is free at play

"The other is the child, who plays free and in what seems like utter chaos, but with a closer look is a harmonious rapture of energy."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

BY ANTHONY ROSS

I think there are many people who end up writing books from what they write on their blogs.  Whether fictional or non-fiction, the blog is a good place to digest ideas for oneself and to express things to a broad audience.  Anyone can have a taste if they care to read.

I've started writing again on a consistent basis.  Partly to digest what it is that I might write and partly to write what I'm digesting.  It is, unlike other social media, a medium where a greater expression can be given.  One that's not broken down into pictures and a few words.  In these last couple days of writing, I've noticed a theme.  The theme is play and the struggle I have with it.  This would be, perhaps, the book I would write.  As someone who struggles with play, I would learn about it and use the context of writing to explain to myself what it is I'm discovering and applying regarding this subject.

Play to me is a struggle.  Why?  I think it has to do with the components of knowledge and ignorance.  When I say ignorance in this context, I mean lack of knowledge.  In starting out life as a child, we know nothing.  We feel our way through life and we do what we must do, without understanding how others may perceive it.  We cry, eat, poop and sleep.  Crying is our language and the others are our necessities.  What happens later in life?  We start to have ideas about things and without connecting with the feeling of necessity or the language that we created without any secondary hand outs, we are forced into a world of symbols.

Terence Mckenna once spoke of how the magical bird that may appear outside a child's window becomes a mere 'bird' when the parent comes in and tells them what it is.  The bird becomes the word, in a non-musical, non-playful way. Though there is a magic to this symbolism, I might argue there is a greater magic to the unknown and to language that comes out of feeling and is not entirely guided by the intellect.  I don't know the way out of this, because we do need to communicate.  The key is to not be over run by verbal communication and to 'think' in different ways, through feeling, intuition and in less linear faculties of intelligence.

Play is not an A to B to C type of moving.  It develops well with a good foundation, but it is as unstable as the ocean.  Unstable to the mind and the intellect, that is.  The play itself builds an order within itself.  Play is a flower.  And the water, sun and nutrients the flower must have to grow are like the parent who feeds the child and is there for safety.  The child itself is unbridled in its movement, like the water that nourishes.  We don't know where the child ends up, we can only watch with a caring appreciation and keep it safe.  So as one who attempts to play, I see myself as two people.  One is an adult, watching with wisdom and nourishment.  The other is the child, who plays free and in what seems like utter chaos, but with a closer look is a harmonious rapture of energy.  It is the responsibility of oneself to be these two people, so that the freedom is there, so play is the flower it is and remains innocent like the sun.

What doesn't work is when the adult says to the child, "You must play."  As Alan Watts puts it, "this is a double bind."  As the adult, we can't force the child.  This is putting the adult's point of view on to the child's order, which is free of 'the old.'  Our knowledge is limited to what the child knows.  And the child doesn't understand the adult, who is usually rather confused with too many thoughts.  The two work separately, yet together.  This is the balance of living as an adult, or one who grows up to learn the symbols placed upon reality.  Keep the little bit of madness alive, however little it may seem.  That is the play.

Ceci n'est pas une oiseaux.

#work #play #resource
Playing with the Buddha Board

"These ideas are not reality."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

BY ANTHONY ROSS

The silly smile.  What else is there to live for?

Let's talk about something I was playing with today.  It's called a Buddha Board and it's fun.  The reason it's fun is because it's in the moment.  There is only the essence of what you are painting on the board before it dries up.  The way the board works is that you paint with water.  The water dries up and changes as it does.  Once it dries up it is no longer visible on the board.  It's fun because of change.  Everything is fun because of change.

My reasoning for what's not fun is because it is stale.  When I say 'it' I am referring to anything that feels like it is permanent.  Key word being feels.  We all know that change is a constant, but we forget.  When we forget that we as well as all our conditions, as well as the way we relate to those conditions changes, then there is nothing to worry about.  One can't worry in a state like this, because one doesn't know where to begin.  There is joy.  Worry doesn't come into being.

When drawing, there is a time for doing messy work.  This is in the early stage of coming up with what it is to draw.  I find this hard, because I want to develop clean and skillful drawing skills, and doing fast ideas is always doing your work with less care, in the skill-oriented sense.  It is all about getting the essence.  I've used a black ink pen and water brush quite well in this area before, and the Buddha Board replicates that, but does an even better job in lightening the pressure to do a clean piece of art.

I am playing with this idea today, not just the board.  Change is a constant.  Permanence is an illusion.  The one who controls is confronted with change as a constant battle.  They get distorted and illusioned with stability.  That stability is stale and hard.  It creates conflict and struggle.  What action is not struggle is action that comes from the essence of joy.  When joy is something that can't be held on to, but something that moves.  There is no final piece of art work in our lives. :-DEach piece moves in and out of the framing of how we are perceiving.  That's a beautiful painting.

Buddha Board in the studio.

#work #conditioning
Soul-Project Challenges

"These ideas are not reality."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

BY ANTHONY ROSS

It's a fine thing to have a soul-project.  A project like this is both captivating and challenging.  It tests your will and it inspires you like nothing else does.  The challenges that come up with it are what breaks the patterning or conditions that one is accustomed to.  The project brings them up and inspires greater growth to places unknown and not yet reachable, or something.

The project I'm working on is super secret right now, but at some point it will be seen by the public and will be critiqued by many.  I am the artist on this project, primarily.  Meaning, all the pictures to it are my responsibility.  Such huge responsibility.  A lot of the times it's overwhelming, even though I am placing this on myself, and I know this, it is still something I am taking as a personal development project and something that I want to be good.
I realized that I had fallen into a trap here.  The trap is that I was thinking of myself as my work.  If the work fails, I'm a failure.

I don't think I'm alone in this, as someone who has done that to themselves.  A mental clinging to what you do, and the effort in which you do that thing.  This doesn't actually make the work better or the work more enjoyable.  Though, I think it's a fine line in these areas to determine how much 'want' you need to do a thing well, rather than just the doing of it with a detached ideal to do it as such. So the question is, can the desire be there without the attachment?  Can the understanding of what the result should be be there while the process is free to not have a conclusion?  Can I work on what I want to work on without feeling like I need to?  This is a bit paradoxical.  This is the very question of playing and of how to describe it.

It is fortunate to not have the conditions of life play the part of pressure on an individual.  In actuality, it is rare for most of us to have the pressure of conditions in such a manner.  The real conditions are mental, much more subtle, and they, when unconscious, control your ideas, action and aspiration.  So in this fashion, I continue to witness the coming and going of waves of uncertainty regarding finances, security in general, and future happenings.  What will I be doing if I don't do well on this project? Am I doing enough financially so that I can work on this project and will this project help me have security later on or should I do something else that's financially stable in the meantime?

These things have nothing to do with the art, and are of importance for anyone, yet, their importance must be secondary to the real wealth of life and of qualitative being.  If you plan for these, you could be missing a great deal of actuality.  These thoughts occur and they bring my attention away from my work, because the feeling is that there is not enough in them.  I run after these conclusions to what would be my preferred conditions, and I lose the unconditional and detached sense of well-being and peace. These ideas are not reality.

These same ideas of 'not now' can infuse any topic into their sense of self.  Meaning, I can think 'not enough' or 'not good enough' about just about everything.  This is also saying that 'now' is not enough.  Without a detached understanding, these mental convictions will contain themselves in the projects and things that we are most observably influenced in and by.  They will contain themselves in everything we see as conditions.  It's in this way that this project of mine is so very difficult and exciting.  The difficulty is something I attach to when I go to work on it.  It's the idea that it should not be difficult 'now' (when I work on it), when I try to do a 'good' drawing.  I have the conclusion of how it should be and the effort is to keep that conclusion in tact.  That is the way one must work to have something come out as good as they feel it can be, compared with other things.

I know what good art is, so I want to make my art good.  To know what that idea of good is and not be swept up in it is a skill.  It's basically having the space to be a complete failure that is detachment.  Anything goes.  When anything goes, one ends up playing.  When one ends up playing, the art or project generally turns out nice, or at least the making of it is fun.  When the making of it is fun, the result is secondary.  That is just how finances and security must be secondary to the fun that is the detached understanding.  So the question is, how does one work on anything with this detachment?  How does one remain in this detachment, and still do something that is just for fun?  Again, it seems the doing of something just for fun is an odd idea, and that maybe the fun is also in things like the difficulty, which are found to be so NOT fun so much of the time.  Thus the chasing of the conditions which is seen as fun is short-sighted.  Real fun is understanding these mental blockages we have in anything we do.  In that understanding, they transform.  Then everything we do is fun and free.