Lately I have tackled something that frustrates a lot of newer and especially younger aspiring artists and that is the fact that making an accurate representation of a person in a painting or drawing of any sort can prove to be extremely complicated. Not only that, but realism doesn't necessarily = art and there are a ton of starving artists out there that make incredibly detailed facsimiles of real life that simply do replicas for a living. I'm not saying these people aren't talented because they clearly are, but is it really art when you are just making an exact copy of something?
I was recently at an art fair and a guy was able to make portraits of famous movie characters in a very lifelike fashion ins a very short amount of time. He was selling these pictures on canvas for around $40 each. This isn't much of a way to make money.
When I speak to my students I do tell them that there is very little chance that anyone can turn their artistic desires into piles of cash and that in many ways the art game is rigged to favor the already rich and connected. This is the reason why we see garbage modern art that looks like ketchup thrown at a wall selling for millions of dollars at auctions yet truly inventive stuff is basically ignored.
I tell them to do the art for themselves and to forget about monetary gain. If you don't enjoy doing it, whatever "IT" may actually be, then you shouldn't be doing it especially with your leisure time. I think many of my students have a difficult time grasping this concept at this point in their lives since almost all of their time is leisure time. I tell them "trust me, it changes once you move out of your parents' houses."
But we focus frequently on not being overly concerned with creating lifelike representations of humans in pictures but instead, giving enough of an indication that it is a person and then allowing the viewer to fill in the blanks with their own mind. In my perception, this is better art than a hyper-realistic human on a canvas. We have cameras and phones for that these days.
Here's a few things I really like about this watercolor. The outline is there and you can tell it is an Asian temple of sorts with monks walking in the front. The people have no facial expressions visible so it is left up to the viewers to determine the emotion of the people involved. The student took the vague outlines of the humans and also extended it to the birds on the wall, which I hadn't considered but it actually also a very difficult thing to replicate perfectly especially if it is that small.
The students seem to really enjoy doing these scenery pics especially because we all do an outline using pencil first. Purists and experts would probably consider this cheating but the entire idea here is for it to be an enjoyable experience for the kids without getting them too frustrated with their mistakes. If they develop the talent to paint scenery without "cheating" then that is fantastic but in the meantime I want it to be an enjoyable experience that they can showcase with pride.
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