So, you want to be an Artist?

[Richard]

There are no rules about what art really is, so it's a good starting point to have an anchor in the form of a discipline, to that end most art courses actively encourage the study of 'Life Drawing' (of human models) to develop useful skills..
The reason being that the skills acquired carry over into other areas and form a bedrock of reference that allow even more creativity to be promoted, or so the theory runs.
However, many students just want to get onto more interesting subject matter as they can't hack it.
But you cannot learn to run before you can walk - clearly not! and not many people are so highly gifted/talented that they can manage without any instruction at all.
Life Drawing skills should show a good understanding of as many of the following as possible:

1. perspective (foreshortening)
2. chiarascuro - uses shading to show the direction of light and to make flat 2-D look like 3-D.
3. Weight - you don't want to make the object to appear to be floating, a few background details help.
4. Mark-making, using hatching, dashes, smudges, dots…, thickness, continuity.
5. Negative space - the bits between the main focus of attention.
6. Speed - the more you repeat a drawing the easier it is to find a shorthand way of doing it.
7. Proportion - heads are often portrayed to large, limbs too short.
8. Detail - don't make an exact copy, creative interpretation is more valuable, as long as it adheres to most of the rules, at this stage.
9. Date your drawings, to check on progress at a later date.
10.Loosen-up with 'mood music' and relaxation techniques - nothing worse than feeling stiff and awkward.
11.Have the confidence to make many mistakes as you go, even starting again and again.
12.Look at the work of artists such as David Hockney - his draughtsmanship is clean and simple.

A small caveat, Picasso once said, “Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility."