Artwork by Ed Lyles

Old Dog New Tricks

I am a retired 66 year old psychologist, American Expat, living in the Spanish Pyrenees. I am enrolled in a painting class here but realized a need to drastically improve my drawing skills. Since last summer I have been drawing and taking every free drawing course available on the internet. I have been enrolled in the painting class for about a year and really can get nowhere without improved drawing skills. Although I never have been that artistically talented, I am trying.

Art takes a special place in my life. Being retired in the EU I have great opportunities to see the infusion of art in culture presently, and historically. I travel a lot and often include art museums in my travel. When living in the US I traveled to see many major art museums. My favorite was the Metropolitan, in NYC followed by the MOMA and the Guggenheim. However, I personally think that the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain is better. Here in the EU I got into religious art in the Cathedrals strictly from a historical standpoint. My tastes are in the Master’s work as well as in modern art. Since starting to study art seriously a year ago, I have a deeper appreciation for painting, sculpture and drawing.

The challenges I have in art are mostly knowledge based but I also feel I have missed out not doing much for over 60 years. I am interested in human form but have much to learn. Although I have tons of undergraduate biology, I never studied it as art. I wish I had but now that I have free time I can.

I want to learn as much as I can about depicting the human form in drawing and painting as accurately as possible. For me, no topic in art is taboo. I am specially interesting in developing more my ability to express the 3D concept of what I see on paper and canvas. In drawing, I lack some necessary basics such as rendering skills among others.

I recently discovered the Drawing Academy. As I have stated before, I wish the teaching artists had done the medical illustrations in my Anatomy and physiology books in undergrad school.

In general, the Drawing Academy provides a quality learning experience. I just finished the Anatomy course and was very pleased with the content and structure.

Why I want to win? Simply to learn more practical drawing skills.

Why should people vote for me? I guess it really doesn’t matter because eventually I will take the course anyway. This is just a faster way for me and at my age anything can happen.