polenta

As we can tell everybody the origin of our nicknames in another thread, I wonder if we could say where our knowledge about drawing comes from. I mean, studies, experience, likes, dislikes, etc.

polenta

I studied two years of Drawing in high school. The other day someone described my picture " Little man" as cubism. That made me think how I can draw something if nobody taught me about it.
My conclusion is that WE ARE SURROUNDED BY ART: the design of our furniture, our cars, the paintings on our walls, the design of our clothes, even publicity, etc, etc, etc. I realized that WE ARE SO LUCKY in this aspect. Design and beauty is around us and it's maybe the consequence of hundredes of generations of real artists who "discovered" beauty and art and transmitted them to us so that we can enjoy them now.
Of course apart from these internalized and unconscious feelings ,there have been and still are REAL ARTISTS like many we have in our community, people with inborn talent and a real calling for art.

clorophilla

In our school when I was 12-13 yr old ( I don't know how to translate it), we have also "drawing". Our teacher was great: she made us to put down our pencils and erasers and for three months we just put down colours on the paper, grasping the wax pastels like a hoe... after this shocking treatment, we all finally forgot the "rules of well drawing" and became fully artists. She was our rescuer!

I have to add also that my mother is a painter: www.olimpiamazzei.it
I grew up looking her mixing oil and tempera colours on the palette, and learned to read spelling the fabulous and charming names of colours (I try to translate them in English but I don't know if it sound strange to you):
Prussian Blue (blu di Prussia)
Beyondsea Blue (blu oltremare)
Petrol Green (verde petrolio)
burned clay of Siena (Terra di Siena bruciata)
Titanium White (but for me, it was "white of Titan"!)
Smoke-of-London Grey

and so on...

I looked at those names, full of wonder, and daydream of those fabulous lands where brave people went looking for those colours and scraped and collected them for painters!

so, may be this explain a bit my love for drawing...

polenta

http://www.olimpiamazzei.com/

oh, my God, the gallery is beautiful. No wonder your pics are great!!!!!

mdawrcn

Oh Polenta, I am so glad you did this. I was wondering about people's backgrounds and whether they currently make a living with their artwork?

five

Chlorophilla, your mother's work is quite beautiful.

Polenta, you are right about being surrounded by design ... but not everyone pays attention or has an eye for picking it up without help/translation from those who are immersed in it. A lot of learning art is learning conventions and ways to see (as well as technique) -- and then forgetting or at least reducing in importance those notions once the hand and eye assimilate them -- doing and looking at the result (much as described by Chlorophilla's experience).

I always drew as a kid, but not with formal study. I finally studied different art media and art history a bit later in life, and I have been doing it for a living (as best I can, anyhow).

Dragon

Polenta, I love the idea of us being inundated and immersed in Art and Design. Make the world sound wondrous.

I've been drawing since I was old enough to pick up a crayon. I did take art throughout my schooling including all of high school but have never had any particular instruction other than that. Since getting out into the real world I rarely draw at all anymore so finding Think Draw was a real treasure for me.

polenta

It might be true that not everybody pays attention to art surrounding us but then it's knowledge some people achieve unconsciously through intuition or simple exposure to art. Could it be that this runs in some people's blood, genetically?
I thinks that having a good singing voice or musicianship is kind of "genetic". Some people have it and some people don't. What do you think?

five

I am not sure anyone intuits it from exposure (osmosis) or genetics in the sense that they can do it well without practicing it. People learn in different ways so it may seem more unconscious or subconscious for some than others.

The "talent" part, like a good voice, (call it hand/eye/brain coordination or something like that) is genetic, like a good singing voice and managing not to have that "talent" (or natural way of seeing) schooled out of you by strict adherence to a bunch of rules that are just conventions anyhow. I suspect there are some who have a natural ability for at least some aspects of drawing (e.g. composition or mark making) and burned out from being made to color between the lines, so to speak. The rest is determination and channeling the talent. I think most people can draw a lot better than they think they can, and I think you can lack natural ability and learn to draw.

There are differing degrees of natural ability -- Picasso, for one, had a sheer facility for drawing (just look at his work as a child) and Matisse had to work a lot harder at arriving at his art (his erasures/cover ups are one of the pleasures of his work. Matisse had an incredible facility and understanding of color, which probably came from natural ability and just working with color.

Just my view, of course.

polenta

You can be a diamond in the rough and then you need to polish it if you really want something else.

GingerNinja

Cool thread...

I lOvE art in school...and my art teacher always hangs my art work, along with my friends art work, on the wall... I have never had actual lessons (other than school) in any type of art. When I grow up, i want to be either a Graphic Designer, or a Pastry Chef!

clorophilla

Just to add another perspective to this interesting debate (nature vs culture etc) give a glance to this page. It was about the son of my Friend Donna, An amazing boy who has a severe emiparesis and mycrocephaly and is impaired in many ways. He can't speake, walk, write, and the mind... well, it's a secret closed in his head (or may be in his hart).
But look at the paints he does!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dario-Bisecco-PainterPittore-ColorEmozione/60915762358#!

Qsilv

GLORIOUS! .....I'd be proud to have produced any one of those richly toned pieces.

gair

I just retired from teaching art for 30 years...elementary all the way up to college (at different times ofcourse). Most of my years were in the elementary grades and I loved every minute of it. Still teach private art lessons. Children are remarkable artists; I saw magic happen every day. TD is my daily fix now that Ive given up my crayons!

polenta

Dario's paintings are incredibly exceptional. Yes, I agree. Art is in our mind then. His colors are breathtaking!
I always think that being anonymous on TD is such an advantage. It allows you to draw or paint as much as you want and in this way, maybe through trial and error you don't lose face and you can eventually get better in your drawing without being so much judged.

Qsilv

I saw this quite accidentally, immediately thought how much the folks on TD might like it... and up popped the very thread to offer it in! ;>

A 15 minute glimpse into a woman's art, the woman herself (NOT young), and what must go on inside the birds' minds to play so with shapes, colors and light itself...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuqqGYr2a5Y

Qsilv

5+ minute companion-piece on just the little birds...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1zmfTr2d4c

Dragon

I once watched a show about Autistic people. It spefically focused on those with a savant talent and several of them were artitistic talents. The paintings and sculptures they produced were absolutely incredible. A couple of them started taking meds and therapy which was helping them to live more in society, to have a more normal life but sadly they often lost a lot of their artistic skills. It was like they had been so seperate from the rest of the world that they could focus so much more of their brain power on their art. When they started be able to interact with the world outside their mind they lost that intense focus. Sad that the art seemed to suffer but their lives were so much better when they could be a part of the outside world and understand it, not live in fear of it, that it was a good trade for most of them.

clorophilla

I want to point out that art not necessarily competes with sociality, on the contrary; drugs could do. Unfortunately, for those people it wasn't found a treatment who had not the side effect of losing connection with their inner self and emotion, the connetion with the living part of the world around them... I wonder if this can be named a "therapy", it seems to me a compromise - may be the only one available, but what a cost!

And also I should add that Dario is not autistic, he's very fonded with people, has a lot of friends and is a loving, sensitive and friendly person, just as her paints... so, at least in this case, art is not a sign of being apart...

clorophilla

...I wanted to say, just as HIS paints, of course - my English sometimes fails, expecially for the number and the gender...