Book Learnin'

In a little less than a week, I'm starting an online class in Analytical Figure Drawing. I'm excited, and also nervous: my three-year stint with college (nevermind the fact that I barely passed high school) was troublesome. Institutionalized learning, as the American education system has it worked out, has never been for me, and I will rant about it in detail here one day. I'm hoping the "online" aspect will work out better for me... listen to instructor for a few hours a week, grab my assignment, do it on my own damn time. Boom.

While constructing my profile for said "master class", I was asked to list a few of my favorite artists. These are some of them:

• Wayne Thiebaud 
• Bengal 
• Jean Giraud 
• Yoshitaka Amano 
• Kaethe Kollwitz 
• Afua Richardson 
• Paula Rego 
• Bruce Timm 
• Shane Glines 
• Pascal Campion 
• Ragnar 
• Bill Presing 

While making this list, I learned a few things about myself as an artist. I like strong linework. I like stark, crisp color contrasts. I like women with some goddamn curves. I like saturated color.

In high school, I sustained a concussion during a rugby game (this is on topic, I promise), wherein some of the cones in my right eye were dislodged or jumbled or knocked out of whack. I learned several years later, during an illustration class, that this fucks with my color perception on a fairly regular basis. I have a difficult time distinguishing certain shades of red and green -- the more desaturated the color, and the closer the chroma, the more difficult a time I have telling the colors apart. This, I'm convinced, is the reason why I've developed such a strong preference for strong, bold colors in my own work, as well as the work of those I admire.

I'm beginning to notice that I'm one of a handful of women taking this class, as well. I'm holding on to the cynical (and somewhat douche-baguette-ish) hope that the teenage prima donnas will be at a minimum.