For the Love of Art

In an effort to keep filling my brain with wonderful things and in order to not let talents get too rusty I signed up for a Life Drawing class at the Getty. I was pretty nervous, it had been almost four years since I have had a live model to draw from, but since this was a beginner to advanced level class I decided that if the stuff I drew sucked then I would just fail to mention that I went to art school for four years and pretend that ‘Yes Mr. Instructor, this is the first time I have ever held a pencil’. I had nothing to worry about, drawing is something that I don’t think that you can lose, it is like swaying to the music in color and I had such an inspiring 4 hours with the most amazing instructor. This man is so gifted that I think I learned more from him in the four hour class than from an entire 4 month session at school. He was old, he had that grandfatherly scholarly look but when he held a pencil and started to draw my jaw hit the ground and I swear a small piece of my heart fell in love with him. I wonder if he would mind adopting another grandchild.

After the class and the wonderful critique where he singled out my work to talk about a concept that I generally like to use in drawing he talked about his Venice trip. He spun magic in that presentation. He talked about a 14 day trip in a sleepy Venice town where we would draw and paint and sketch every single day. Where we would take our easels into the surrounding countryside to draw inspiration, where we would have critiques on our work, where we would visit neighbouring museums and works of art and where we would fill our souls with the colors of our love of art. I desperately want to go; I wonder if I can go; I hope I can make it happen.