Three Hours of Art Knowledge… Look at the Transformation
This is what can happen when art is taught through understanding, not mimicry.
These images show the progress of one student during and immediately after the first part of my course: Drawing Out Your Potential.
First came the drawing before the lesson. Then came the learning stage, where the student began to understand the principles behind what she was seeing. Finally came the independent drawing afterwards, created at home with the confidence and knowledge gained during the lesson.
That final portrait is not a copied version of my work. It is the student using her own new understanding.
It is not all about talent. Some people do have a natural sensitivity, but so much of what we call talent comes from subconscious awareness: noticing proportion, light, shadow, shape, rhythm and feeling before the conscious mind has even explained it.
Once you begin to retrain that subconscious awareness, amazing things can start to happen. You stop forcing the drawing. You begin to see differently. You begin to trust what is actually in front of you, rather than what you think should be there.
That is often when students find themselves slipping into flow: absorbed, present, focused, and far more capable than they believed.
I do not teach people to mimic me. I teach them how to see, how to interpret, and how to understand the optical illusion we call art.
Drawing Out Your Potential is the first part of my three-part art course. It explores the psychology of seeing: how we observe, how the viewer reads an image, how light and shadow create form, and how drawing becomes a way of understanding the world differently.
The full course is made up of three parts:
Drawing Out Your Potential … sketch, psychology and how we see
Changing Your Perspective … the maths, logic and structure of art
Seeing the Bigger Picture … paint, colour, geology, science and atmosphere
There is also a free one-hour figure drawing course, Figure It Out, when the online course is purchased as a complete set.
Lessons are available face-to-face in Cornwall, online, or through Zoom. I am also there in the background afterwards for little 5–10 minute support check-ins when needed, at no extra cost.
The student left an extraordinary Google review after the lesson, describing how the session changed the way she saw and perceived things, opened her eyes, and helped her feel comfortable and able. You can read her full words on my Google reviews.
If you have ever thought, “I can’t draw,” “I have no talent,” or “I missed my chance,” this is exactly where I love to begin.
Search Art at the Beach by Jeanni or Visual Awareness to find the lessons and online course.
Jeanni
Art at the Beach | Visual Awareness
Mawgan Porth, Cornwall
