A new feature for online students: “Skill Building Challenges”
While hard work, proper instruction, and dedication to the craft are the best ways to build one’s skills, outside factors can help give the student or professional a new reason to apply themselves and provide an additional “push” to their studies. For the professional, deadlines, art shows, and high profile clients are often reasons for them to re-assess their skills, focus, and push their craft further than they have before. For students, opportunities such as portfolio reviews or friendly in-class competition can help drive their skill building efforts.
With this in mind, we at the Watts Atelier are proud to announce a new feature for our online students; our “Skill Building Challenges.” These ongoing, rotating challenges are designed to be paired with our online lessons, and are a way for our students to push their skills and test their retained knowledge from the lessons.
Each of our Skill Building Challenges are broken down into three 30-day cycles, which are meant to test the student’s competency in specific phases of our online programs. Scheduling the challenges in this way helps give the participants a bit of structure in their studies, while providing the all-important deadline that forces an artist to push themselves. Each leg of the journey in the competition will be judged by Watts Atelier founder Jeff Watts. Judging will be based on skill competency *and* skill improvement over the course of the competition, so students of all levels are encouraged to participate.
To give students time to prepare and get themselves in the right mindset for each week’s challenge, we are releasing an overview of the upcoming Skill Building Challenge and it’s cycles. These cycles are set to start next week, on May 18th, so please take a look and start planning appropriately in order to give yourself the time needed to participate!
Skill Building Cycle 1; Incorporating the Fundamentals
-week 1, Starting May 18th, ending May 24th: Utilizing basic shapes (The student will show their
understanding of basic shapes through simple still-life by using their own
found objects..paper cups, balls, etc.)
-week 2, Starting May 25th, ending May 31st: Understanding contour (reference will be
provided, Students must show an
understanding of form through contour lines)
-week 3, Starting June 1st, ending June 7th: Shadow mapping (using either a skull, statue, cast, or
portrait/figure reference, the student would demonstrate their
knowledge of value, mapping out the light&shadow pattern)
-week 4, Starting June 8th, ending June 14th: Bringing it all together; Building objects with form
(Students would construct their own complex still life and use all of the above skills to execute a final drawing)
Skill Building Cycle 2; Embracing Portraiture
-week 1, Starting June 15th, ending June 21st: Constructing the skull (Students will complete a skull
drawing, pulling from the skill sets of the previous cycle, and render it to the best of their ability)
-week 2, Starting June 22nd, ending June 28th: Understanding the planes (Students will use provided
reference and break the portrait down into the asaro head planes)
-week 3, Starting June 29th, ending July 5th: Cast Drawing (Students will use reference provided and complete a head cast drawing)
-week 4, Starting July 6th, ending July 12th: Bringing it all together; The Self Portrait (Students will
use all of the skills learned thus far to complete a self portrait)
Skill Building Cycle 3; Understanding the Figure
-week 1: Starting July 13th, July 19th: Mannequinizing the Form (students will use provided
reference and break the figure into a mannaqueinized form)
-week 2; Starting July 20th, Ending July 26th: Planar breakdown (Students will use provided reference, and
draw the figure into a breakdown of planes)
-week 3&4, Starting July 27th, Ending August 9th ; Bringing it all together; Long pose drawing (Students will
use provided reference to construct their own long drawing of the
figure)
The specific rules for the Skill building Challenges are as follows;
1) As the Skill Building Challenges correlate to our lessons and are meant to test a student’s competency in them, Students must be enrolled in the corresponding online program to participate (In this upcoming Skill Building Challenge’s case, students will need to have access to the drawing program).
2) To move on to the next week in a cycle, students must have completed the previous week’s assignment. This means that you must start the cycle with week one, on the appropriate date, if you wish to make it to week 4.
3) Students must post at least one work-in-progress image (but are free to–and encouraged–to post as many as they wish) in the appropriate “Work in Progress” thread for each challenge they participate in (the threads will be live in the forum on the “start date” of each cycle’s challenges)
4) All final submissions must be submitted in the appropriate thread in the Skill Building Challenge forum by midnight (US Pacific Standard time) on the end date of that challenge.
As previously mentioned, each student’s week 4 cycle submission will be judged by Watts Atelier founder Jeffrey Watts. Skill, competency in the craft, and most importantly understanding of the concepts and overall improvement will be taken into consideration when judging. While the final “Bringing it all together” image from week 4 will be the image that is judged, Jeff will be taking into account your efforts in the prior weeks (and remember, participation in the prior weeks is mandatory in order to participate in week 4’s judged challenge). And just what does the winner in each cycle get..? An original Drawing, From Jeff himself, as a “thank you” for your dedication, application of skill, and hard work.
Pushing your own limits is a mandatory part of growing your skills, and we hope that our Skill Building Challenges will help drive you to push yourself farther than before. Remember, the first cycle of the Skill Building Challenge begins in one week, so start warming up now! We’re looking forward to seeing everyone’s efforts and final submissions, and Jeff is particularly excited to see our online students push themselves further and demonstrate their skills.
All the best, and enjoy the Challenge!
-The Watts Atelier Team