Thursday, June 4, 2015

back at it...

spring, in my garden
My last post back in February was telling you about upcoming classes. Well hey, after 10 years of teaching coloured pencil classes and workshops of all sorts - for example beginner drawing, coloured pencil portraits, cps and mixed media and of course coloured pencil basics and the Beyond the Basics course, I have finally had a male student!

Isn't it odd that no man has registered before??? Over the years, I have met lots of male artists and some of them are professional coloured pencil artists.

I have chatted with lots of keen fellows during my studio tours. There are men in the coloured pencil organizations around the world...and yet my classes always filled with ladies.

Mick (the first TMS male student!) actually came for some one on one cp instruction as he is creating portraits in graphite and he now wants to explore adding colour.

Was it any different teaching a male? Of course not, people are people. I have taught various ethnicities and ages of women and none of it matters. Still, I had come to expect that only women would sign up, after all of these years. :-)

Spring has raced past. I am sitting here sorting pictures off of our camera into various flower files.

Now the early summer blossoms are wowing us. My poppies are open and I need to snap some pics of my irises before they are spent.

I have been busy getting my massive vegetable garden planted. This is done and now I can get back to my drafting table - where I shall be for the wonderful summer months ahead.

I hope you have had a wonderful spring!!!!

3 comments:

Jennifer Rose said...

there is clearly a huge divide in the group of first years at Uni. There are males but I would say its about a 25-30% men and the rest women. My last year of college there were 2 guys in a class of 16

I think with leisure classes, at least here, art ones are generally seen as something women do to mostly gossip and maybe get some work done :p

I find it odd there is such a difference when it comes to Uni/college and art that there are usually more women when in many art fields there are more men. I don't care what gender an artist is, or race, it shouldn't really matter as long as they create work you like.

Teresa Mallen said...

Hi Jennifer Rose, thanks for taking the time to comment! :-) I have found over the years that a lot of my students are women that are hobby surfing. They often haven't done much art before but coloured pencil seems easier, more approachable than say oil painting. I think more of this is occurring as baby boomers retire or as women experience the empty nest. Learning coloured pencil becomes one of many new things to try.

I also suspect that my art classes are less appealing to men as the art on my website is rather feminine, a lot of flowers, girlie colours... :-) I think we tend to want to study and learn from someone who does work that we would like to do.

I do find it a bit frustrating that professional male artists are often seen as the real deal, especially if they work full time at it. Female artists can get viewed as women with a lovely hobby which happily earns them a bit on the side. To be fair, I encounter older women who fit that model which makes it tough for those of us charging what our work is worth (not just trying to clean out our closets and cover our framing costs).

Anyway, Mick was a delight to teach. He is new at drawing, has thrown himself headlong into this new passion and his efforts are paying off. He draws A LOT now and his enthusiasm and work ethic will take him far.

Jennifer Rose said...

cps are a good medium to try your hand at, just takes patience, so good for beginners and trying to find something to do, either a hobby or something serious.

it can be very frustrating when male artists are seen as the real deal and women are not. I am not going into the best field for this, Graphic Design is very often one sided in the working world, oddly its reversed in Uni/College, more female students then males in a lot of places.

Glad that Mick was a good student and he is really passionate about art, often that is all you need to succeed at it :)