Exercises from The Structure of Man
When I was growing up, I drew a lot. I spend many days on my belly, with a pile of papers and a pencil in my little fingers. Family friends gifted stacks of blank papers from the discarded corners of their lives. At school in those days, we had actual functioning art classes. We were given assignments and graded on imagination and technique. But it was at home that I drew the most. Reading, on the other hand, filled up the hours when I was not furiously scribbling away. It was necessary to be able to continually fill up the draining wells. I needed muses for my paper stories. I devoured fairy tales and stories about life in lands far away from the tiny little town I grew up in. Then I talked to myself and made up pictorial dialogues that I put down on paper about the people and places I read about. Book cover illustrations were a peculiar obsession. There were hours spent studying the planes and angles of the faces of characters so I could recreate them in my own childish versions.
At some point during primary school, I was enrolled in a local art class in town. It was an interesting and unique little place. A small, dark ‘shophouse’ lot amongst a row of other shophouses in the heart of town. It was a few doors down from my favorite coffeeshop and across the street from the favorite student hangout-a corner stationery store that sold everything a little small town kid could want. The teacher was a middle aged man, gruff and stern, and to this day, the only person that ever called me by my Chinese name. He had old wooden tables arranged in his class where kids sat in groups on little school chairs. You could look out to the street if you want/dare, there was no door, only a large wide opening typical of such a shophouse. The fan blew above and kept us cool.
All around the upper walls of the dim but naturally lit room were hung portraits our art teacher had done of various people, in charcoal and oil or poster paints. He also had stacks of his laminated artwork that we would go through and select. We learned by example, copying from his laminates or we could bring in a book or a picture. He hovered over us giggling and gossiping schoolchildren, wagging an invisible cane while we pretended to paint. It was the place to be for a sheltered convent schoolgirl. Here I met kids from other schools around town and came to know them by name through the end of secondary school and to this day. It was a rite of passage for those of us who grew up in our little town-at some point or another, we all knew and have painted furiously under his intent watchful eyes.
I haven’t drawn in years. It ceased at some point during secondary school, once I discovered other social interests, friends, boys, plays and school responsibilities. I certainly haven’t been in art class since the little shophouse one of my (almost distant) youth. There were drawing classes of a different kind in architecture school, but nothing that loose and intuitive. Perhaps it is time again? I am toying with reconnecting with this long forgotten childhood pastime. An old masters oil painting class is being held nearby, where I could get my hands dirty and learn figure and portrait drawing the way I had only dreamed about as a little girl.