The Purposes of Learning

This is kind of Omega related.  But less so than usual.

A few days ago, someone I watch on DeviantART posted a piece she had been working on.  The piece, in terms of it's color choices was wonderful, I found the palette pleasing.  However, the piece as a whole disagreed with me.  This was because the proportions of the figure were very "off."  It was unpleasant to look at for too long.

As I looked back at what this artist does, I realize there are many factors that could have helped her making that painting better and so I want to talk today about the purpose of learning in art, and why classes that seem pointless can actually be very helpful.

This artist had decided that instead of starting with a drawing class, she would jump into a second-level painting class.  And I'm sure she learned a plethora of painting techniques, but it didn't help her proportions when painting the human figure.

Whenever I take the time to critique someone's work in my mind, I always go through my recent pieces and see if I notice anything.  In this case, how proud am I of my anatomy in my figures.

As a biochemistry major, it was always difficult to fit in a 3-hour art class twice a week with my normal lab schedule, but I have managed it on two occasions: 1) taking Fundamental Drawing my sophomore year and 2) recently taking Fundamental 2D this past semester.  Fundamental drawing was a wonderful class, I did everything from learning to see light and shade to form objects to drawing accurate human figures.  The difference the class made on my perceptions of light in shadow in my pieces has been dramatic.  However, when I started 2D this fall, I was skeptical to what a black strip project and a pack of 220 paper colors would help me do.  Four months later, and I realize that I learned how to mix colors, how to balance darkness and light in a picture.  When I go to make future pieces, I want to work with limited color palettes and stretch my abilities to portray my characters in the correct colors but also to portray them in the correct lighting.

My strengths may lie in drawing anatomical figures in dynamic poses, but my weaknesses have been in color choices and make a piece "whole."  I think was my friend is lacking is a serious knowledge of drawing skill and it contributed later when she was asked to portray figures accurately in her paintings.

I realize that even as an illustrator, I need to continue learning many different mediums in order to learn how to properly improve my artwork, I wish others would see that as well.

I know that this post had nothing to do with Omega, but it just sat in my brain for some time and it's art-related, so I just needed to get it out.