[I showed this double image to my mentor John Mahoney - "What do you think?" he said "Getting there..." Felt good to here that from him!!!!]
Leonardo da Vinci is one of my greatest inspirations. In this image his drawing is on the left and my work is on the right. I did this to show my admiration for his work and how I try to learn from him. It's a good to find people you admire and pattern after them. This helps you have something to shoot for, something to use as a yardstick to gauge your progress.
In the 1400s it must have been great to not have as many distractions as we do today where a master had time to work on his or her craft daily. Here in 2012 every artist is not able to do so however you must carve out sections of your schedule to work exclusively on your craft. This is vital to your growth. It is because of this I have grown to not like driving places (especially in the Bay Area) because when I do I don't have time to work on my skills - Drawing people. I've drawn hundreds of people (perhaps getting to the thousand mark) on public transit and I can say the more you do it with the proper approach the better you get at it.
The proper approach is key though. You can draw all day everyday with a particular skill level in mind that you would like to reach and still not get to it. Many people actually stop and move on to other passions. This happens to people who don't experiment enough and develop the proper approach or who never had a good instructor. Many drawing and painting instructors I have seen may have skill but lack the ability to inspire, motivate and communicate how they got to that level of skill.
I learned all of these qualities while apprenticing under John Mahoney. John's ability to motivate and inspire is so piercing that not only did my drawing level improve, I also improved in many other aspects of my life. Most of the really incredible teachers I subscribe to don't just teach one thing, they expound on a great many things to drive home the main topic. This is what I've done in my ebook "Drawing Toolbox." I touch on other aspects of drawing beside putting the pen to the paper.
Just a few thoughts that surfed my mind when I saw my work next to Leonardo's.
until the next time… Keep Studying:)
Here is some of my mentor's work "John Mahoney"
