First day of class (July 4)

Summer classes at the FAA officially began today. I am enrolled in two three hour classes Monday thru Friday: Still life painting taught by Sofia Romark, and Figure Painting with Hege Elisabeth Haugen. Both classes are taught in the traditional academic method which built on the foundations of the technique of sight-sizing. Sight-sizing and I have always had a sort of love-hate relationship with it.
The process takes an excruciatingly long time, and the methods seem archaic and at times ridiculous (walk six steps back, measure, six steps forward, make a mark, six steps back, re-check accuracy of mark, six steps forward, fix mark, six steps back…). However, artists who are trained in this method produce jaw-dropping work. After taking a sight-size-based cast drawing class a year ago, I've grudgingly come to respect and appreciate the method. While I may not use it all the time, sight-size is a great exercise in training yourself to see and record subjects more accurately. One of my goals during my time here is to learn as objectively as possible.

Here are some examples of work by FAA students: