Art Academy Years
I registered for a 6 week class in drawing/painting at the local community center. The results of those six Wednesday night, 3 hour classes. One partly completed oil painting of tulip flowers. I spent 3 of those weeks trying to draw the tulips, before I touched the paints. Everyone else finished 3 paintings in the 6 weeks.
About The Art Academy
My friend took me to her school. There I was at The American Academy of Art in Chicago. I registered for a 3 year program, studying studio art with a concentration in oil painting and figure drawing.That’s a big change from Craft Master paint by number kits. My drawing instructor said drawing is all about seeing. So for 6 weeks we focused on drawing in charcoal from plaster casts, until we could really see what was there; the old master’s way of drawing in those European academies.
Then for six more weeks we painted from photographs. Here is my first painting after 12 weeks of classes.
Drawing and painting from life
Now we began the real work. That means from a breathing and often moving human being. Three times a week we spent 3 hours drawing from the nude live model. 1 minute poses, 3 minute poses, 5 minute poses and the long 20 minute pose at the end of the session. Three more hours of painting from another model, who was sometimes clothed. Oh yes and then there were the drapery sessions (drawings of cloth in charcoal to learn how to see clothing)
In year three I built the human form in clay, starting with the skeleton, adding the muscles and then the flesh on one side of the sculpture.At the end of those three years I now had the skill of being able to see, and to draw. They call that graduation. I call that just the beginning of my adventurous art career. Because what I now know is that once you have the skill, what you do with it becomes the Gift. To keep things somewhat in time it is now 1968.
https://www.aaart.edu/
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