I am currently enjoying retirement with time to take on new interests. I was introduced to art as most children are. Drawing, finger-painting, paint by number, etc. I was one of those kids that just always had to be creating something. Usually animals.
I was lucky that the Toledo Art Museum offered a drawing course in perspective.
My name is Siv, it is a Nordic goddess name. My father thought it would give me luck in my life. And it did! I live in Sweden born in Finland!
My father was an artist known only in the small villages and surrounding places I grow up in. In my heart he is a great artist!
I have four children, nine grandchildren, so I am truly a lucky women!
I was in the middle of a crisis, feeling that I was about to give up drawing and painting. The reason was that despite a certain natural ability I had never acquired any technical skills to elevate my level. All my projects got stuck at a point and I was unable to achieve what I had in mind.
As an example of this, I am sending a sketch I made long time ago of our dog as she was “sunbathing”. I was interested in bringing out the shadows of objects in the room projected on the wall and the figure: Unable!
Browsing the net as a last resort I came across the Drawing Academy page. I simply loved the sample materials.
I am a self-taught Artist from India. Art is my passion since childhood.
To improve my art skills, I need a mentor or a very good art course to master oil painting skills.
I think that Drawing Academy is a very good place to learn art.
Since my early childhood I have enjoyed creating artwork as mostly a hobby, to sooth my mind. Around three to four years ago, I decided to give artwork a more prominent place in my life. I could not afford to go to art school so when I came across the Drawing Academy I was more than excite. I found so much technical information, things I didn’t know, that I could add to my artistic proclivities. My artwork started to progress immediately.
I felt compelled to continue on the Old Masters’ copies and pleased with some improvement in likeness and shading.
I tried to draw a woman’s face after one of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings and somehow I find it extremely difficult to position the lines and do correct proportions and angles, as if my eyes cannot comprehend what is there. I tried to draw the skull under, which helped a bit, but there is a mystery to me as to how he creates female faces.
If I could just shade it a little darker…” I press the pencil point down on the lips of the face I’m drawing. The already worn paper gave through, allowing the pencil to rip past the multi-universe that paper represented for that short moment.
In other words: “I ruined it again” I grumble to myself and glance at the stack of paper I’ve collected of failed attempts at drawing a face. I frown and shove them off the table. I grab a new stack and start all over again, “This time for sure!”
Originally I used a lot of soft blending with graphite pencil, but since becoming a member of the Drawing Academy I progressed onto hatching and cross hatching, which was a new and interesting avenue for me. However, even though the academy seems to frown the technique soft blending graphite, I have kind of ignored that teaching and also taken on board the idea of hatching. I now use a combination of soft blending and hatching to achieve the effects I need. Does it work well or not? Feedback would be welcome.
Hello,
My name is Abdullah Alfalahi (Eddie) from United Arab Emirates. I’m very passionate about arts since childhood. Given where I was born, art was never in the center of attention, but I kept drawing, then was distracted eventually by work and family.
I consider art as everything in my life, art of all kinds but I mostly admire that sustainable art, and art that has a story to tell about the artist or the surrounding of that period. I decided to pursue it though researches and visiting galleries across the world. The only professional learning I have received so far is online from Web Arts Academy by Natalie Richy. I was able to learn the secrets of oil paining and drawing that I would not have learnt by experience.
I learned that I could draw and learn to draw in my old age. Drawing is a way to leave the story of my life for future generations.
I want to learn how to draw from my memory and imagination. I tell my story in art.
Drawing Academy would be a great learning resource to me. Because of many issues in my older life, I am unable to get back into normal society. Art can provide this for me. Telling my story in art will be one of the crowing event my life before my sunsets.
