Dolls and Spatial Relationships

Barbie in a Burka, so I sort of think that’s cool…
Last night I taught my final linear perspective class and we discussed how males are generally better at perspective drawing. Boys play legos and ball and shooting games, and also apparently hormonally have the edge for understanding spatial relationships. In other words, males naturally think in 3D.
Girls play with dolls (Barbie!) and housewares, and excel in interpersonal relationships, probably also hardwired to some extent. They are better at language.
One of my students, however, talked about his research work. He takes volunteers, maps parts of their brains, and then sends them to a 10-week course on how to play video games. He then re-checks their brains, and THEIR BRAINS HAVE CHANGED as a result of the gaming.
So isn’t that a reason drawing should be taught in school? To both sexes, but especially to girls? And maybe the boys should learn to play with dolls? I tried, futilely, providing my kids with boy dolls (a cute boy Cabbage Patch--poor thing gathered dust).
These things are on my mind as I search for non-violent, non-computer-game holiday gifts for boys. Sigh.

Children’s Drawings and Monsters

Here’s an interesting drawing project. Artist/Fantasy Illustrator Dave DeVries takes children’s drawings as his source for monster paintings. I’m really glad he displays them together, because his work doesn’t really stand up for me without his inspiration.
It’s interesting to compare the spare drawings with the complex paintings. Personally I like the drawings better because they leave more to the imagination.
Part of his project is to help kids get over their fear of monsters. Part is just to immerse himself in the logic of kids. A few years ago I used some of my child’s drawings in my paintings, because they were both honest and loopy.
Really hate DeVries’ presentation, though—very distracting mats and frames.
(Critical Kloe in the house tonight…)

Almost Live

My online education website is getting closer to going live.
It’s been almost two years since I began to work on this project. I knew that academia wasn’t going anywhere for me, and began to look around for something to replace it. I got inspired by the story and personality of a celebrity chef, Sam the Cooking Guy—his idea is to be casual about the way he teaches cooking. I thought I could do the same for art instruction.
I soon realized that no one replaced Bob Ross, who died of cancer ten years ago, because it’s difficult to produce a show about making art. And expensive.
I started with my step-father behind the camera, and we did some great initial work. But technicalities overcame us. I then used some friends, D Movies, but they moved to Europe. Now I have a team shooting and producing the videos, and creating the website.
Short vids have been up on YouTube for a while, and have had moderate success. My website will be subscriber based, for people who can’t travel to a classroom, or just want to learn at home.
I’ll also be writing a blog about drawing, and some of those posts will show up here on Kloe. So if you start seeing much more on drawing techniques, you’ll know why.
Above is an example, “Man with Folded Arms” by Roy Lichtenstein from 1962.

I don’t draw a picture in order to reproduce it—I do it in order to recompose it. Nor am I trying to change it as much as possible. I try to make the minimum amount of change… I want so there is no record of the changes I have made. Then using paint which is the same color as the canvas, I repaint areas to remove any stain marks from the erasures. I want my painting to look as if it has been programmed. I want to hide the record of my hand. -RL

But the beauty of Lichtenstein’s drawing/painting is that it IS done by hand, not a computer like we are used to. He wanted to be like a digital printer. He could only have been successful in the 1960s when he painted.