People often tell me: “You make it sound as if art is the most important thing in the world”. Well, of course it is! Will you ever say that it is not to my students who run home with passion in their eyes to show their parents what they drew in class today? Or will you ever tell that to a kid who is a bit older and has already convinced himself that he cannot draw?
You will show him how to work with paint, teach him little tricks with a brush or even fingers, while drawing on paper, cardboard or canvas. You will go from simple things to complicated ones.
“It is all about how you feel materials and drawing tools, and also your understanding how it works and what you want to do with it. You have learned a lot, keep growing! Play with the material – it is fun!”
At this very moment tell him that it does not really matter, it is not important. Will you be able to?
There is so much information in our world nowadays, and it is constantly changing making it very hard to keep everything in mind and understand profoundly. How do you manage that? It is simple. Stop and think about what YOU feel…It is just as important as strategic and calculative thinking. You can read a lot of interesting information on the topic on Betty Edwards’ website about drawing using your right brain hemisphere (http://www.drawright.com/). I like the idea that in order to be happy and successful, one should not only have the ability to think rationally, logically and mathematically, but also have an ability to feel.
I have always admired people like Boris Rauschenbach. He was not only a great scientist, physical-engineer and a person who played an important role in Russian astronautics, but he was also a respected paintings specialist who wrote a lot about building perspective in art. Boris used to say that feeling is just as important as thinking and calculating. (http://www.peoples.ru/technics/rocket/raushenbah/)
One of my favorite authors Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was a well-rounded individual. Everyone knows that he was a writer, a pilot and a good artist. There are not many people aware that in addition to all that he was also a successful engineer who patented a number of his own inventions. Once when he was still a child, he was on a train ride. It had such a great influence on him that the very next day he started drawing trains and soon after was able to replicate trains' mechanisms on paper with astonishing accuracy. Drawing is a natural need for anyone. It is not just a way for us to express ourselves, it is also an opportunity to explore the world around us. It is a way to live in the world and see it through the prisms of ourselves.
Make art and let your children experience it. Give them this inspiring opportunity! And please make sure that you and your kids have real paint, paper, etc.
I have created a new tab in my blog called “My works”. The pictures there are the result of my preparations done before the lessons. Many art teachers have encountered a very interesting problem: when you draw – you stop explaining what you are doing to others, but when you start explaining – you stop drawing. I am no exception. That is why I draw the pictures according to the lesson’s topics beforehand.
You can also find there the icons I drew.
The icon of St. Barbara was drawn by the late Alyona Martynova (May she rest in peace).
I was working with her as a student and as an apprentice. At the same time, I was also working on an icon of St. Irina in order to independently try out and practice new techniques.
After Alyona’s death I was the one who finished the Theotokos of Kursk she left behind. The icon is currently at The All Saints Church, Calgary (http://www.allsaintsroc.org/All_Saints_Roc/Glavnaa.html)
I will post all my works in the blog’s gallery. Please leave your comments, opinions and critique. I am hoping to update the gallery with new works on the regular basis.
