Why I Love Being an Art Tutor

 I can proudly say that in many of my adult art classes, the artists-in-training will often behave like children: at times rebellious and argumentative but most of all playful. I welcome it since my objective is to coax them into getting in touch with their “child within”. What good is that going to do them, you may ask. Well, this is the point where I will get out my dog-eared artists’ bible “Drawing on the Right Side of The Brain” and start quoting ad infinitum.

A funny thing happens on the way to adulthood. Its generally called growing up, but I think in many ways, particularly with respect to creative self-expression, its got more to do with a regressive rather than progressive movement. For so many people, as the physical self grows, the creative soul shrinks. Fear is a word that comes to mind. Conformity is another. Fear of failure and conformity are two things I tackle head-on with a vengeance. Fear shows up in the nervous preliminary pencil marks. It shows up when I hand someone a big brush and tell them to randomly lay down wide strokes across the canvas. Conformity shows up in students’ desire to paint like such-and-such artist. Copying is as good a place to start as any, but the goal is to find one’s own individual groove. As Picasso is purported to have said: “Good Artists Borrow. Great Artists Steal.”

The use of acrylics is ideal for these exercises in letting go, because unlike watercolour, it allows sufficient elbow room to make mistakes which can later be modified or retained. Very often its the “mistakes” which prove to be the highlight of a painting and I always stress the need to be alert and spot which mistakes work and which mistakes don’t. At first there is a sense of being overwhelmed by so much information. Where to start? What to include and what to leave out? How to match that particular colour? How to manipulate tonal values to give a sense of depth and light? But with practice you learn to filter out all the “white noise”, find a focal point and build upon your growing understanding of colour (cools and warms), shapes (sharp and soft edges),compositions (balance harmony and tension) and create dynamic eye-catching paintings.