One of the key questions I have had during the ARP is to what extent is technical instruction useful to student development in drawing and painting? Or can students gain technical accuracy by experimenting and looking instead of technical instruction?
One of the ways I encountered the differences between teacher led learning and student led learning, was with students who were used to learning through step by step technical instruction.
In my first lesson with one student, we set up a Magritte inspired composition with a still life and a background of the sky and discussed in in various ways and when the student came to put paint on canvas, they paused and asked: “How do I paint the sky”?
I was slightly stumped at first! The idea of not being able to put paint down to paint a sky go from there was something I had not considered. With this student, we went outside and looked at the sky for 10 minutes. We then stayed outside and made 5 drawings of the sky in different mediums. We then went back inside and closed out eyes and drew the sky.
In other scenarios, with still life set ups, we used common organic and man made objects for these works. In these instance, I found a really important point for my own teaching methodology. I came upon the difference between what I am calling “filling in” and “looking”. This is where the thinking and physical memory of the experimental warm up drawings came back into play.
During the ARP, I have asked students to learn through experimentation and through really trying to access what they are working with by looking and observing the still life set ups rather than filling in their drawing with predetermined ideas of what they thought the object such as an apple look like. The difference between looking and filling in is a key part to the methodology behind what I am offering to my students.
I wanted students to become conscious of when they were drawing what they “knew” an object to look like within their mind, I referred to this as filing in. What I hoped was that helping students to be aware of this, would allow for them to reconnect with the objects and get back to looking at the object and drawing what they saw. No two apples are the same. I believe that through the process of looking students are able to find their own hand which holds their own languages to register what they see.
And more importantly, this places a responsibility on them to connect with what they are making and to be in charge of their own work.