To become excellent at something is easy as long as I remember three basic principles. 1. Discover what I want to achieve. 2. Find a teacher who knows how to achieve what I want. 3. Follow their instructions week by week until I have achieved what I want. I teach an art course called Recreating a Masterpiece. I guide my students through weekly drawing exercises, from having little to no skill as an artist, till at around 12 months they are master painters. It is easy too. I teach them one new small skill set each week. They go home, practice it for 15 or more minutes per week for 52 weeks until they can perfectly recreate a painting done by any master of their choice. I say this because when I first discovered I enjoyed painting I was told correctly that I had no artistic skill. Of course I had no artistic skill. I was just beginning. I was thirteen and my sister had asked me to join her in taking a water color class at the local W.M.C.A for a summer. At the end of it my teacher told me that he felt, sadly, that I had no talent, no skill. I didnt care about his opinion. I really didnt. I only knew one thing. I loved the experience of sitting down at a table, or under a tree and drawing. So I practiced it every day. I began to look at very good painters works and mimicked their paintings in my drawing book. Two year later as a sophomore I was asked by my art teacher to enter one of my paintings into the Ohio Annual Governors Art Exhibition. I won. I realized then that, yes, my water color teacher was correct. When I began painting I came with nothing but the desire to learn. Then I practiced until I got really good. Since then I have taken this journey of becoming a master painter as my template, my map for doing anything I want. I never ask, can I do this thing? I only ask, do I want to do this? If the answer is yes, I search for a teacher, a good teacher, and then I practice day by day the little steps of the many small skills, one at a time, till I become good at what I do. The lesson I teach my students is displayed in these photos. These images are displaying the first four stages of learning to draw. 1. Learn how to draw a perfectly straight line. Draw that line a thousand times. This develops Eye Hand Coordination. 2. Learn how to create light to dark shading with those straight lines overlapping. This is called Cross Hatching. 3. Learn to see with your eyes by drawing random images exactly the way you see it. Like a crumbled sheet of paper. To do this it requires that you turn off your memory, and become aware of what you are seeing. This is the most difficult step of my course because everyone is convinced that they are looking at what they are drawing. But they are not. It is when they realize that they are drawing an image they have in their memory, and not the one in front of them, that is when they lift their eyes and begin to really notice what they are recording. 4. Draw an accurate image of the painting or photograph of your choice. At about this stage of the course my students begin to realize that they are actually going to achieve success and become a master painter. A thing that they thought they could never have achieved before they started. I ask them to select some amazing painting and then say the words. I will paint a perfect reproduction of this painting or photo in 12 months. They get a print of this picture and put it on the wall of their bed room, in their drawing book, anywhere where they see it frequently. This helps them answer the perpetual question. Why am I practicing drawing and painting? Oh yeah, they say to themselves, I am practicing so that in 12 months I will be as good as this master painter I have chosen. At about three months into this course they realize that they will, in fact, become as good as any painter who ever lived. And that is when they begin to look at the three other areas of their life where they have felt frustrated, wanting to achieve success, but failing. That is when I begin to enjoy the course at a whole new level. I help them put in place a structure in which they practice having what they want, in the same way they practice becoming master painters. What are those three areas? 1. Physical fitness and perfect health. Having a body they love. 2. Having a job that they love going to each morning. The criterion for this job is it must be service to others that they would pay to do. When they find that career they do it for pleasure, and as a result they get really good at doing it. When that happens people gladly order whatever you are offering from you. 3. Having relationships with others so that your mind, heart, and body is fulfilled. The indicator is that you will feel really happy about your clients, your friends, your love. By the time they finish their first reproduction of a master work they also have this life that they deeply enjoy in these three areas. I like watching people get what they want. When they do I am reminded that I can have what I want. I am reminded that the process is simple. Ultimately that is why I teach. So that I can remember how to achieve anything I want. Ironic, isnt it. I get back what I give to my students. Ask the question and the marvelous answer appears. Rumi movingfastsittingstill.net
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 15:53:36 +0000
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