​My Foundation students continued studying colour. After their long three hour paintings last week, I had them attempt four 30 minute paintings. See my above examples. There was a huge improvement in the energy of the classroom. My students stepped up to the challenge and the development from their first to last painting was obvious. 

Here’s the incredible work from my student Sophie Williams. Throughout the term I have been greatly impressed by her ability to learn quickly and willingness to take risks. This painting is a great example of her understanding of painting with mass, material handling and colour.

My Anatomy class finished their long project today. I think more than anything they learned just how much there is to learn. Many of my students want to do another term dissecting the figure. 

The term is flying by an we've already moved on to colour! This week I had my Foundation students work with a limited palette. Every term students can't wait to get to colour. But when they do, they are shocked by how much more they really have to learn before they will understand it.

My Anatomy students continued with muscles of the torso this week and will be moving onto muscles of the arms next week.

My Foundation class moved on to oil paint this week. I haven’t oil painted in three years and didn’t realise how much I missed it until I put my brush against the canvas. Here’s my first painting of the day.
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My anatomy students moved on to muscles this week – and they thought the skeleton was hard. Ha!

I spent the last week with my nose buried in my work trying to get ready for the Thought Bubble Comic Festival so here’s my weekly post on teaching at London Fine Art studios a week late. More on my experience at the festival and sleep deprived hallucinations later.
My foundation classes had their last class of charcoal drawing and I couldn’t be more ready to move on to oil paint. It’s been ages since I’ve got to get the paint out and I’m starting to realise how much I missed it.

I had to make an intervention with my foundation students this week. A healthy amount of self criticism is good. Students who think everything they do is good and refuse to take a critique are pointless to work with. On the other side of the spectrum, students who are overly self critical never build the self confidence to move forward. I’ve been dealing with a third variety and it’s taken me some time to wrap my head around it.

Often when I approach a student to give a critique they say their drawing is horrible, terrible, a monster, etc. before I’m even able to get a word out. Then follow up each point a make with a reiteration. At first, I thought this might be a cultural difference – Americans are over positive and Brits, overly self-deprivating – but I always thought there was something odd about it. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s some sort of ego protection. By dismissing their work, they are separating it from themselves and failing to focus on their process having a problem which created the poor work. This moves the critique away from their actions and on to something that is not them.

I had my limit of ego protection last week so I pulled the class together and told them to leave it at the door. Be self critical. It will enable you to develop but make sure it is in a way that is about aiding progress, not hindering it.

My anatomy class was much more straightforward. We did our last day of skeletal anatomy and will be moving on to muscles this week.
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I gave them a pop quiz on the anatomy we’ve gone over so far. Punishment for getting a question wrong was public shaming via the Shame Bell Mobile App. I highly recommend it for motivating students. 
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Just got my copy of 'The Artist' magazine with the article I worked on with artist Ann Witheridge. We give an introduction to what is taught in the Gesture and Anatomy class at London Fine Art Studios. Copies can be bought here: www.painters-online.co.uk/store

This week at London Fine Art Studios I continued demonstrating skeletal structure to my Anatomy students. We have one more week of skeleton and then it's on to muscular forms.

I started my Foundation students on their first long drawing. Now that they've seen the entire drawing process that is taught they're beginning to trust and understand the system.  Here's my terrible drawing demo that almost ended up like the picture on the right.
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My students at London Fine Art Studios were very productive this week. I think my intervention last week helped get them into gear.

The Foundation Class moved onto chiaroscuro and modeling shadow shapes this week. One of my classes did exceptionally well. I think this due to strictly following instructions on how to prepare the charcoal on the page. Some evening students didn't put as much effort into following the steps and many of them found themselves struggling with the material.

My anatomy students started a two week section on the basic skeletal forms. More on that next week... 

I'm back at London Fine Art Studios for the Fall term. This year I'm teaching three classes; Gesture & Anatomy and two sessions of the Foundation Course.

In week one I gave an introduction to drawing with charcoal to my foundation students and discussed basic drawing techniques. In my anatomy class I reviewed perspective before we start deconstructing the human figure next week. The drawing above is one of my in class demonstrations.

Keep an eye on my blog for more updates!

Here's some of my work from the Leighton House Museum show with Lavender Hill Studios. This series demostrates the teaching in the first half of my Gesture and Anatomy course at LHS.

1 September - 4 October 2015
Leighton House Museum
12 Holland Park Road
London W14 8LZ

I had the pleasure of running a weekend figure drawing workshop in Manchester with Salford Artists Workshops (www.saw.ac) on the behalf of Lavender Hill Studios (www.lavenderhillstudios.com). We had a wonderful group of students who weren't afraid to take risks. Thanks to everyone at SAW for their hospitality.