Robert Schulz has been studying oil pastels in our Saturday morning class for about 18 months. Also, he recently decided to work towards a degree so he started taking art classes at an online university in California. These classes are excellent and very motivating, although costly. Robert is working really hard to get good grades and learn as much as he can in as short a time as he can. They have tutorials in which several different teachers participate. Each explains one of the possible ways to go about doing the assignment of the week. I loved hearing the instructors say the same things I say. For example, “There is no one perfect way; there are many ways and you have to find what works best for you.”
Above left is a photo of the still life arrangement Robert set up at home. The drawing on the right is the line drawing block-in. He is required to send this in for critique before continuing. Unfortunately, both photo’s were taken with the art work tilted back away from the camera, which distorts the work. Robert was not concerned with that because he was just sending them to me and not to his teacher in California. (This is something else for you to add to your store of knowledge about taking photos of your work—make sure the camera is perfectly squared to the art work.)
The students first watch and listen to the assignment online. Then they do their first draft (Which could take 4 to 20 hours depending on how much knowledge and experience they have) and email it. Robert is still fairly new to doing serious art so it takes him a while. I think they have a week to send in the block-in. Then they go online to get their critique & suggestions. All the other online students also send their drafts and everyone gets to see everyone else’s rough and the teacher comments. Along with the view online each student receives a print out with the suggested corrections. Similar to you guys doing thumbnails and doing the block in and me giving you the go ahead. They are not graded on the block-in, just the finished piece. This school has a tough grading system, however they do allow you to redo the whole piece to raise your grade if you need to. Because Robert did not study drawing with me and he knew nothing about measuring and because he hasn’t had any experience working from a live set-up, he didn’t receive the best grade on his first assignment.
Although he was disappointed he didn’t give up. Instead, he worked harder than ever and worked with me on measuring and relationships of distances. He made all the changes the teacher suggested and brought his grade up. Good for you Robert!
The above drawing on the left is his almost finished piece and the one on the right is finished. I am sure many of you think the one on the left is finished, but look closely and notice the change in the right side of the book, the finger on the book and the end of the mannequin’s hand. I bet he gets a really good grade on it. He realizes it is not perfect but he thinks he has learned a lot and he had to mail it in today, done or not. I think it looks Great!
Some of you might remember Robert and his painting (seen below) from the art show last spring.
20 x 30 oil pastel Robert
