Monday, November 14, 2005

 

Art Class Daze.

I was one of those kids whose parents sent to art classes, them hoping that I'll probably turn into a Picasso of some kind and support them for life after selling a 5"X5" painting.

Erm, in a way, I kinda got into the arts-related (industry?) bidang whatever. They're cursing under their breaths right now, wishing that I had gotten my ass in Engineering instead. Art supplies, developing photos, camera, blablabla. I hope my dad doesn't get a heart attack when he learns that I need a video camera next year.

"This is really going to cost you..."

*pushes negative thoughts aside*

Do parents automatically assume you're going to be some great mathematical genius just because you liked playing with calculators as a kid? :-/ I hope not, cos all I did to get my bro (hahaha, poor kid!) into art classes was draw a few manual game books. Owh, you know, the kind that were "in" in primary school and required players (friends that were forced to play) to choose some kind of route to finish a whole exercise book of game.

Players choose route, weapon, ways of attacking (by mouth and sharp stabs of the pencil on the game book, of course. Usually accompanied by great amounts of spit.)

That's all it took. Zipppp. Suddenly, Saturday mornings were early days, the two "great to-be artists" waking up at 6.30 a.m in the morning to attend art class near the old KTM station. Great_Teacher_Artist was a simple, selamba (all the better) Indian man who we didn't think was so great at that time. In fact, we thought that our dad paid him to tell us to draw, teach a bit when we did wrong, and read The Star until the end of the lesson.

Bah, greatness and its simplicity. 0.01% probability, but if you're reading this, Great_Teacher_Artist, TEACH ME AGAIN!!!

During the first lesson, we were told to draw whatever we liked, to show him where we were. I remember drawing a vase in garish blue and green, and thinking naively that it was some kind of masterpiece. To my surprise (surprise, surprise) he told me off. No shadows! No tone!
Both my bro and I got the idea that we'd be staying for a long, loooonnnng, time to get to where he wanted us to be. Hahaha.

Great_Teacher_Artist told us to get a box of 48 colour pencils each. We thought it'd be some kind of temporary thing. Right? Colour pencils, then move onto watercolors, and so on, riiiiighht? Opps, wrong again.

As far I can remember we used them for a few months, until we stopped. During those months we copied pictures from coloring books (I couldn't see the point then, thought we could just color right in), colored those pictures, colored pictures that he drew (10-seconds-stuff), and still life. We bought oranges, brinjals, eggplant, (Again! brinjals and eggplants! WTF.), and other kinds of vege to draw, usually eating them for lunch afterwards.

Got tired of his lessons and waking up early, and we stopped.

Then later we went to another art class, this time with my sis as well.
When we paid fees for the entire month, we entered the class for the first time and almost died of shock.

KIDS!! Shorter than my waist, running around like...
kids. It was like being trapped in an asylum! We were doing stuff like cutting newspaper and pasting them on art block, painting with fingers, free painting... !@#@@$!
I got so tired of her voice, the way she plucked my brushes just because they wouldn't smooth to a fine point, and mostly because we weren't getting anything out of it.

Once, we had a little conversation: (words to that effect la)

Me: (Getting sick of doing collage) How do you make trees differ from each other when you paint? They're of the same kind.

Scary_A_Woman: Just paint them differently. Add a bit of blue to this one, and the one next to it, add more green so that you can see that they're different.

I took her word for it. Even after observing real trees of the same species WEREN'T of different shades, I just painted them that way to differ them. Thank God I don't do that now, they'd just look out of place.

My third art class, which lasted for a day, was a "trial" kind, which I went with my friend Lindz. The teacher was really enthusiastic, which I liked, and she was even having an exhibition then.

Chun_Art_Guru: What do you want to learn?

Me: (Wah, you're a master of some kind a..) (dun believe) er, photo-realism?

Chun_Art_Guru: *excitedly* Ok!

She told me that materials weren't important then, but the skills required. Of course I didn't believe her then (MAN I'm a skeptic!) because I practically worshipped acrylic at that time. She let me use acrylic anyway, because I insisted.

Chun_Art_Guru taught me about layers and their importance in making the painting "ada substance." She also taught me that the importance of creating art is greater than merely painting from real-life. (For the first lesson, she told me to paint an apple in front of me, enlarged and halved)

Of course now I know that Chun_Art_Guru was actually right about creating realistic pieces using any kind of materials. Not that I've achieved that standard or anything. Haha.

So how exactly did we found out about how great Great_Teacher_Artist was?

Well my mom was at some kind of art academy and she found Uni students drawing apples! So being kids then, we were kind of "advanced" already! Cheh wah! *smug* So all the years of drawing still life finally drilled a little observing skills in me.
All the more sharpened by watching people. *koff* *koff*

If you were not sleepy before, you should be by now.
So am I. Bluergh, zzz.

Comments:
yo...super long gila...tak baca pun terus komen aje. :P
will baca when i lapang. (teng kiuk ya) :D

-lu tahu la siapa-
 
dah baca! bagus bagus! i suka kat pos ni! brings back the feel of it all. ;) dah rasa jiwang ni!

-siapa lagi-
 
Wooo.. Memang serious art student wehh!!
 
Yo Siapa lagi,
Lu aneh betul. HAHAHAAHAH!!! komen lagi aneh. :-D
Begitu cepat dah emo-jiwang...aih..



Micheal,
tiang kayu! *bows bows* *kembang*

M#H
 
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