However, all of this fuzzy painting over many years led the man to believe that he had lost his ability to draw correct figures and proportions. So after years of being an impressionist, Renoir decided to go back to being a classical painter...and failed. It was true, he had lost the ability to draw.
But we talked about all of that in class. So where's my contribution? Well, I've had a similar experience that Renoir had. Back when I was in high school, about Sophomore year or so, I thought I was amazing at drawing. Of course, all I drew were little cartoon cats, but I believed that I couldn't possibly get any better. I decided to take a cartooning/animation class just to prove I could draw better than everyone else, but was shocked when the teacher wanted me to use a different technique than the one I had developed over the years. Over the course of the next year I drew only in the teacher's preferred technique, and when the class finished I decided to go back to my own style...and I felt that I could no longer draw, I could only draw the way I had been taught. Every time since when I have tried to draw with my old technique the drawings look horrible, but I know now that they always were horrible and I am very thankful for the class I took( it taught me to draw using basic shapes as a base). In my silly high-school-girl mind back then, I felt similar to Renoir in that changing my style had permanently damaged my ability to draw. But I moved past that, and have found that experimenting with different styles and techniques has made me a better artist and has helped me develop my own style. Perhaps Renoir never got past the mental block of "I can't draw." Or maybe it was his arthritis.
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...It was probably the arthritis, huh. But the "mental block" theory goes much better with my story, so I'm using that instead. So there.
1 comment:
I enjoyed the fact that you made a personal connection!
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