OOOHHH!!! Do tell about the bike! I look forward to motorcycle-flavoured drawing anecdotes:)As to the class thing - well, it would freak me out a bit to look down and see someone else's drawing style there - even in the name of experiment :)
(I'm such a control freak dork lol).

E

I LOVE your leaves Danny -- both those in Franck's style and your own. I too have drooled over Franck's books and wished for that 'suggested' way of sketching ... my own tend to be a bit stiff as I learn ... but both styles have great possibilities -- I suppose one has to determine what's most comfortable and his/her own way of rendering what is seen. Congrats on the bike -- Love the metaphor too!

:) Your post made me giggle, especially the end. The drawings do really look nice, but that class didn't sound too free. The potholes definitely sounded like more fun than a pile of fruit. Sounds interesting though.

no way..you really played hooky and went out and bought a mototcycle...you're my hero!

I feel a bit of sadness when I can distinguish someone's work by the teacher they studied. I've had a couple who wanted you to see exactly as they saw, and graded you for it whether by letter grade or attitude toward your work. Glad you hit the road and let the wind take you away.

I read your post this morning and have been thinking about this all day. Over the summer I took a watercolor class. The teacher was competant but would not allow us to paint from life. We had to work from photos. It was deadly dull and my work was too. I think this whole issue of having/finding a teacher is fraught with obsticles.In the end, I am figuring out that just looking at other's work and doing my own is the best way for me to learn. So disapointing about the heir apparent! You are right. Your drawings don't have their "Danny-ness". Perhpas ideas about drawing don't translate well into the classroom. I look forward to your next post.

You handled it the best way--gave the class a try, saw the results, and chose your own path. I've actually met Frederick Franck at his place Pacem in Terris, have a good friend who spent a lot of time with him in the 70s, and both of them would emphatically say: do it YOUR way!

This was a problem that I struggled with all through art school. I had one teacher with whom I had an argument nearly everyday for an entire semester based purely on his assertion that I was drawing "incorrectly." And by that he meant differently from him. Looking back at my sketchbooks from that period I have a dozen or more pages of his art where he tried to show me how to do things "correctly." I never warmed to his style, and being young and idealistic I bucked at every assignment he gave in class, and flat refused to bend to him. At the reception for my graduation he apologized to me, and complimented the style that my own personal work had adopted, but it was still a long frustrating period of my life.

Stick with the class and see what happens.

oh, you've just reminded me that i have an unread copy of The Zen of Seeing lurking in a box somewhere, must dig that out. nice post, thanks.

I have thought about this particular issue for many years- ever since graduate school. As an architect our education focuses on past, present (usually present) and future paradigms in architecture. Our projects are judged against the latest thinking and popular "styles"; rarely have I seen a professor able to extract that which is inside the student - usually it is embracing current thinking and trends. I was lucky enough to have a professor (a color theorist and artist) able to do this for me.

I joke with other colleagues that any original thinking has already been established and all we end up doing is regurgitating the same stuff. Occasionally a talent will come along and really innovate present thinking and preconceptions and move on to a new paradigm and take us with them. It is what draws the rest of us to truly creative thinking.

I have also found that in my personal spin on creativity. I glean from others (not unlike many of us who spend time on your site) to make sense of what I'm thinking and eventually find my own voice- some of which I presently understand but beat myself up on because it somehow doesn't measure up to those I admire.

I end up searching what other "experts" have to say but usually it is in the context of their own work. I cut out the fat and digest what I think is important and implement it into what I am doing. I've thought about going to workshops to improve my thinking but usually am disapointed by the class content and end up at the library or browsing the web trying to discover the undiscovered.

Thanks again for speaking my thoughts.

Yay! Thanks, Danny!

How do I say why this was important to me? Drawing, particularly, seems to be the class where the only instruction I've ever been given is "just draw it like you see it" and then told "like you see it, not like that" - except that "like that" IS what I see.

I even had a drawing class once with a professor who would come around and do corrections - literally come over and draw on your drawing to "correct" it - and he always added things that were not actually visible from where I was sitting.

I guess it's just nice to hear from someone who is a "real draw-er" that sometimes, it's just about style. That's what I want to tell myself, but when my skills are so poor, it just feels like I'm just plain wrong.

Enjoy that cycle, but WEAR YOUR HELMET!

This is so interesting. It's also the funniest post I've read this week.

I do love your leaf drawings but miss the vitality of your pen line...

I have done several workshops Zen Seeing Drawing here in my country, by a lovely teacher called Maria Adreans, who got permission from her teacher Franck to teach too. They changed my life.
I didn't know Franck is blind and deaf now. In a way that's remarkable to hear for me: I'm legally deafblind too.

Yaaayyyy! Good for you!! Once again you are an inspiration. I would have figured out the 'time to play hooky' part myself but moving on to buying a motorcycle thrills my inner animal! Next time I manage to escape from that kind of confinement I'm going to find a big way to put a point on it.

A great source for mechanical pencils from Japan is JetPens: mechanical pencils