Draw 50 Beasties by Lee J. Ames

Author:Lee J. Ames [Ames, Lee J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7704-3286-7
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Published: 2013-02-11T16:00:00+00:00

TO THE PARENT OR TEACHER

“Leslie can draw the best beastie I ever saw!” Such peer acclaim and encouragement generate incentive. Contemporary methods of art instruction (freedom of expression, experimentation, self-evaluation of competence and growth) provide a vigorous, fresh-air approach for which we must all be grateful.

New ideas need not, however, totally exclude the old. One such is the “follow me, step-by-step” approach. In my young learning days this method was so common, and frequently so exclusive, that the student became nothing more than a pantographic extension of the teacher. In those days it was excessively overworked.

This does not mean that the young hand is never to be guided. Rather, specific guiding is fundamental. Step-by-step guiding that produces satisfactory results is valuable even when the means of accomplishment are not fully understood by the student.

The novice with a musical instrument is frequently taught to play simple melodies as quickly as possible, well before he or she learns the most elemental scratchings at the surface of music theory. The resultant self-satisfaction, pride in accomplishment, can provide significant motivation. And all from mimicking an instructor’s “Do-as-I-do …”

Mimicry is prerequisite for developing creativity. We learn the use of our tools by mimicry. Then we can use those tools for creativity. To this end I would offer the budding artist the opportunity to memorize or mimic (rote-like, if you wish) the making of “pictures”—“pictures” he has been anxious to be able to draw.

The use of this book should be available to anyone who wants to try another way of flapping his wings. Perhaps he or she will then get off the ground when a friend says, “Leslie can draw the best beastie I ever saw!”

LEE J. AMES

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