Formal art training...

Who's done it? Did it help you any and where did you go?

I'm really considering going to some sort of art school in a year or two. I really would love to get better at my craft and it'd be great to make it into a career of course lol.

Yes
AT first in jr college. Truly i received better life drawing work there than I did at the KCAI. IT's just a matter of going in and doing the 3 hour practice from a model. Something you could do at home if you chose. My friend has set up a website with a model for people wanting to work at home. I will make sure I get back to you with that. THe more you do it, the better it gets in all areas of your art. If I had the money and energy I would be enrolling yet again for a refresher course. I did this even after I left the tute. Took a class for no grade at jr college.

If your not shy there is always Dr. SKetchy if it is in your town. I have gone a few times here in KC. 6 dollars for the session. All levels, a little burlesque but hey the price is right. No instruction however. Just practice for all...and you meet some really interesting people. Sometimes that's great, somethings..eh..but it caused me no problems. The one here is in the West Bottoms. Dr Sketchy's Anti Art School: New York

I've done ONE college art class, my nude figure drawing class last year and it helped me a ton! Im actually considering going to the college here (it's not a big school by any means but it's not quite a community college). My AP art teacher was very complimentary about their program and I've had some stuff at a couple shows there before.

I added to my post above...still looking for my friend's site.
I called her..and here you go. SHe put this together on her own because she wanted to make it accessible for people to practice life drawing without cost.
Free Artist Models

I have only been able to find one pose so maybe she hasn't gotten very far with it,,but e for effort for trying.

IF your having a person model for you at home...use a piece of plexiglass to trace what you are seeing and then compare it to your drawing if you get stuck on something.

I would have a hard time doing this from a photograph in the beginning. I believe there is something to be said for proper posture in front of your work with your arm extended..killer for the shoulder..at least for me.
My teacher use to say "take evening primrose susan..we all do" while i ached away. IT would just lock up. Sometimes art is just painful

It's amazing how much I got out of my figure drawing class in ALL aspects of my art, not just people.

Though it's a tough class to explain to non artists why you need to draw nudes. I've had so many people get weirded out by that.

RIght now in Hyia's drawing lessons we are still doing draw a box in 5 positions. Draw an egg. Then for fun I let her decorate them at the end. Draw circles light and hard fill the page. Starting from the ground up here. Her box had sides..but they weren't connected to the body of the box..like flaps or wings of a bird. I hate to say..lets do it again, but slowly over and over we are getting closer. IT is hard for me to explain that for that is something that from the get go was easy. Line goes this way, line connects to that line, this space is this big,,that space is not. Life drawing is like that. The body with it's intricate, lovely curves and angles presents something we know, but something totally foreign at the same time. Negative space is so critical. I think it will take Hyia 10 years at this rate before we can discuss things like that..but I hope I exaggerate. Just getting her not to bear down on the pencil so hard it indents three pages is a goal at this point. I am keeping her lessons to about 1o minutes so she doesn't get frustrated.
Draw the skeleton..twice or more. Draw the skeleton of animals
Draw muscle man
Draw your face
Break it up in geometic planes
Draw an animal's face in geometric planes.
and so on each lesson setting in your mind to build on.

To break it up..draw it realistically, stylized, geometric and abstract

start your sessions with gesture one minute...3 minute..10 minute and a final 30 minute pose if you can get anyone to hold still for you that long.

I did high school art classes, that's it. Mostly, I joined online art communities and mentored with professional artists that way. I learned most of my theory that way.

I have like..... no theory lol. I just have been drawing constantly since I could hold a pencil. We have boxes and boxes of drawings around here from me growing up.

Good. I hope you fill up hundreds more before your done!:thumbsupsmileyanim:
Cuz really that's the important part. If you take a life drawing course. THe first thing they will have you do is draw dear mr skeleton. WE had to learn the names of the bones too. Little things like the femur is the longest bone in your body that the average human body is 7 to 7 and a half (i think that's right..this is from a long time ago) heads tall...that the hand generally is the size to cover the face, can fit one eye between both eyes, eyes line out to the top of the ear,...all of that are general guidelines. WHat seperates us all from looking line clones are those sutle differences. My tibia is longer than any one i have ever met. So you look at what is average, and then what sets apart your person and go with that. Mostly learning those things, that negative space is every bit as important as postive, doing the muscle man is what your going to get out of a semester. THat and about a hundred hours of drawing. I have books on anatomy and animal anatomy that someone bought me at the guild, they thought it would help me explain to the children's class better....it would be a good book for you to have. It's packed, but once i am unpacked I will come back with it for you.

I think I told you before, but SCAD is hands down the best place for art ed IMO. I know SO many people who have gone there, if not for formal education for learning a few things here and there. One of my fave art teachers in high school graduated from SCAD. She told me I should go there. When I saw her a year ago I told her I was thinking about going to grad school to be an art teacher and she told me again, SCAD SCAD SCAD. I wish I could, I really honestly do. If I had my pick of ANYWHERE in the world... that's where it would be.
SCAD also does distance learning now but I'm not sure how well that would really work. I don't doubt that if there's an innovate, amazing way to do it, SCAD has found it, but on campus learning would likely be far more wonderful.

OTOH there's also Art Institute of Chicago, which I have considered in the past - and then I'm only about three hours south so we could go tear up Chicago with our fab little dogs. ;D I believe there are other art institutes in other locations, but I have heard people say Chicago is really unique and probably the best.


Myself, I just took art classes at community college and I've done some seminars/workshops the local uni offers, but my major when I was getting my BA was not actually art, so I didn't really have the opportunity to take more art classes. My mom works at the com college now so I can take one free class every semester, and I am seriously thinking about taking a few studio classes since I can... it's been a while since I set foot back in the studio at the community college, but when I'm there in that environment, I feel inspired again. It's wonderful what just being in that environment can do.

Back when I went CHicago was number one. AT the KCAI (number two tho the library was number one in the USA) money won't buy you in. Your portfolio is your gate pass. I went on a dare. A double dog dare from a friend that said "you can draw rings around those people just try it". So i went with an attitude of someone that knows they are going to be told run along now. My drawings were rolled up with rubber bands. I was 23 with a baby girl and poor and living with my mom after a nasty divorce. SO as my drawings were unrolled and viewed by a man I later respected as a GOD I said "i would like to go to your school but it would have to be for free."

He told me..
YOu have excellent craft.

I heard..
antioch craft fair

he said
Go down to financial aid and they will put you on full scholarship.

my jaw hit the ground. I couldn't even pull away in the car when i got to it. I just sat there.

THe BEST TIME OF MY LIFE. THe first time i felt I was where i really belonged with people that made sense to me. That's priceless. THe facility, the opportunity, the availability of tools..swoons..

So if you get the opportunity grab it with both hands and don't turn loose for any reason.

you don't learn to teach there. YOu learn to be an artist. Get your masters and you can teach art in any university.

THe one thing you do learn there is daily hard really hard work and every day that slips through your fingers for the rest of your life that you do not feed your soul by effort will be a great loss and the guilt is huge.

THe life so short the craft so long to learn.

A qoute I saw hammered into a copper fireplace shield. Don't know who said it.

I know some people who want to college for visual art. I have to say I thought there were amazing BEFORE they went.. and they got way better. (and one person that I wondered why they were pursuing art at the post secondary level.. but they improved immensely too!)

Thats such an awesome story Smkie!!

(the bolded part is that still true in the US? In Canada you can teach at community colleges with a masters, but need a PhD or post doc to teach at a university)

I don't know..it was a long time ago. IF you get that far teaching would be a fall back job anyway. My point was don't be afraid to ask. Sometimes the answer is YES.

I don't believe there is a phd in art but that might have changed as well. THis was 20 years ago for me.

You can still teach at university in the US with an MA. A PHd will look even better though. You can get a doctorate in a few fields in art but I can't remember which fields (a doctorate was never something I wanted to get so I didn't really read much about it.) Surely art history was one of them... like it's in the research-y kind of fields, the stuff that gets you more an MA versus a MFA.
I want to teach at the community college where I first went, because there was a teacher there who really inspired me, and I want the opportunity to be "that teacher" for somebody else... and you only really need a MA to teach at a community college. I believe there are a few people teaching at the CC who have a PHd but there's obviously a reason they chose CC over uni. But I don't think I'll ever end up pursuing that dream.

Smkie, a very good exercise for children to learn correct pencil pressure is drawing little "tornadoes". You start dark at one end and shade down the tornado until it's almost white at the other end. Back and forth. Different sizes, it teaches pressure and gradient. I can make a few and scan them in so you can see what I mean.

Another trick I found with kids that have a tendency to push too hard is to give them vine charcoal. It's very brittle and soft, forcing them to lighten up on the grip and pressure.

Taking art classes in college would be a dream. I took an oil painting class once at university. I didn't get to finish it because I ended up in the hospital, but just learning how to use the materials opened up new worlds for me. In high school I started teaching at a private art school when I was 16, and probably learned more from the students than they did from me. I took some art classes in high school, but the teacher let me go straight into studio (free choice) classes. Now I wish I had taken the basic stuff with the other kids, there was probably a lot I could have learned.

I skipped foundations because I transferred in my classes from Jr college. It made it sooooo much harder. I didn't know the basic stuff and had to burn the candle at both ends to catch up. I knew how to draw, but not paint. SO my oil painting was my first one, same for water color, pastel, and on and on. EVeryone else knew so much more than I did. They didn't teach you how to do this, you were expected to know that before you came. They taught theory, and visual language and the rest. Many of my peers had grown up with private lessons. I felt so much like a hick at first it wasnt' funny. Even tho I was on full scholarship that didn't pay for supplies or living costs. I sold my early 65 mint condition mustang my first semester and bought an awful gran toreno (i dont' even remember how to spell it) and lettered LANDBARGE down both sides. I hated that car. It got me there however and the money from the mustang sale kept me going. I was able to split some supplies with a friend and that helped.