Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.
– Jim Rohn

I am not bragging when I tell you I have  seven years of college education. That equates to two associates and one bachelors degree. If I collected all the knowledge I gained in those years (minus the incredible art history lessons I received), I believe I could have taught myself the same stuff in a week. Okay, maybe a month. The point is, unless you are being taught specific techniques and exercises, the rest is all bullshit (sorry, Mom). My college professors were a bunch of windbags. I bet you half of them were stoned when they walked into class. They certainly talked like it. I remember one “professor” had us paint a still life for ten minutes, then trade places with person next to us, flip our canvas’, and paint the same still life over the one we just painted. Apparently, his pot was particularly potent that day.

If I were to teach, and I am considering it, I would teach the same way Mr. Steve Perkins taught us in high school. Technique and heroes. That is, learn a specific technique and find a hero that you like who is famous – or not so famous for using that technique and write a biography about him, copy one of his pieces, then use the same technique on a piece of your own.

f**k drawing what you feel like. That comes after you know all the rules. You have to know them to break them. Pablo Picasso was an accomplished, classically trained painter in his teens. Need I say more?

Okay, so I’m a traditionalist at heart, so sue me.

Growing up, I lived on a street with twelve houses on it. The street was surrounded by pastures and forest. You would think it would be a very lonely existence, however each house had at least two kids living in it. Our games of hide and seek took hours. There were so many of us, we would team up. In those days, there were no fences, so we would pick the backyards that were “in bounds”, and it was usually the size of a football field or larger. Those were the days.

I didn’t blend anything on this drawing. I wanted to keep it loose and really bring out the different textures with lines. A good example is the bushes in the background.