A day in the life video of Avron Soyer by Kacey Anisa with Avron’s sketches of Political figures in the days long before this contentious debate. Transcript Except: A close shot of Avron’s hands holding scissors and a stack of sketches, he says “Ok, the first thing that one does is cut off the sides, […]
Avron Soyer on his Teaching
Interview with a Student 2000 -Avron Soyer Avron: I am aware of the danger of identifying the potentialities of art with any particular approach. I am on the side of open creative dialogue between person and discipline. I want to accept and encourage. Yet I also want to help students move closer to art. Thus […]
Excerpt from Living Art -The Face
2.3 The Face The face is extremely difficult to draw or paint as a unity. It resists connection to the body. It tends to fragment into its features. One problem is language. Face language is extremely analytic. It separates. It doesn’t seem as strange to say, “First I painted his face and then his body” as […]
Living Art I. An Invitation
An Invitation Opening 1.1 Writing is surprisingly different from face-to-face art teaching: no colors, gestures or voices. One must “spell it out”. I write because I love art and because I noticed I am old. 1.2 I teach at The New School and The Educational Alliance. I also teach recovering drug addicts and people who […]
Living Art- II. Teaching Pattern- Reconstructing the Human Figure…
Reconstructing the Human Figure as a Unity, and Sensitivity to Implicit Movement 1.Opening Most of these exercises apply to both painting and drawing. I usually begin with drawing because one can’t learn everything at once. Yet I found that if one waits more than three classes to introduce painting some students implicitly identify the […]
II. Teaching Pattern- Two Figurative Approaches, Working with Local Color
Two Figurative Approaches 1.Opening I am uneasy about sharing some highly specific and detailed techniques. They can be very helpful in seeing and sensitively articulating patterns. Yet unlike most suggestions in this essay (e.g., drawing the figure as a unity, sensitivity to warm and cool colors, openness to archetypical themes) they are not relevant to […]