Finding the Source

I like to compare my perspectives in art and find relations to life. Because in truth, artists draw life, even in the abstract. And life is the source for everything here before us which we learn from.

   One particular thought I had during my years at the Atelier as a student, happened after a continuous mention of "move this over here", "this needs to come down just a hair", "this is too large", and so on. We are being taught to look for perspective, proportions, angles, connections, relationships of shapes, colours, etc., and many other things that make up the complete work.

   As some students become artists, I was frustrated and confused at times from what I saw, to what the teacher saw. I needed to understand why the instructors were telling me what they were. "Why" was huge. It pointed out the source for their correction.

   The thought occurred to me from something my mother had mentioned to me years ago. She was a pharmacy technician at one time and said that drugs only mask a problem, but do not fix the source of it. (Some may take pain away, but not actually deal with the inflammation or injury.) And many times, there are side effects. These side effects can confuse one with that of the source of the problem. Based on that thought, I began to look at my relationships in my drawing, looking for the cause of my inaccuracies. I was beginning to see many times something that was adjacent to what 'looked to be off', or even a shape nearby, as what can throw our brain off from realizing the problem. For instance, there can be a glaring problem, such as an ellipse I could be drawing, and every time I make an adjustment, it just looks worse. So, I always end up drawing it exactly how I started. Then I wonder what the problem really is! I usually have something beside that ellipse drawn out of proportion (even slightly) and it makes that ellipse look like I have the angles incorrect. I was looking at a side effect rather than the problem. It might have even been something so tiny! Therefore, if we do not find the source of our problem and focus on correcting that, we could run off on all kinds of tangents to find our entire drawing getting further and further away from accuracy and trying to fit it in this “box” that is not the right size.

   This takes an adjustment in our brains to recognize something different than what we think is right in front of us as an easy solution. Be alert, take your time, and don't have blinders on.