The Waichulis Curriculum
Insights into the nuts and bolts of a modern-day skill-based visual art training system.
The following essay is intended to offer insight into some of the inspirations, development, dynamics, and evolution of The Waichulis Curriculum that serves as the main training program with the ÀNI Art Academies. The content I have provided here is not a comprehensive walkthrough of the entire system, but rather it is a cultivated collection of information intended to address many of the most commonly asked questions about certain aspects of the program. In addition, I have attempted to clearly explain why I have adopted some aspects of existing “classical” or traditional training systems and not others. It is also my intention to organically augment this paper from time to time with additional insights that I believe will be useful and informative for those interested. I do hope that you enjoy this walkthrough of some of the nuts and bolts of the Waichulis Curriculum.
Influences and Inspirations
The story of famed violinist and educator Shin’ichi Suzuki is an interesting one. Born in Nagoya, Japan, in the Fall of 1898, Shin’ichi spent his early years immersed in a world of music despite his family’s lack of traditional musicality. Shin’ichi’s father, Masakichi Suzuki, while not a musician himself, was a maker of traditional Japanese string instruments who eventually focused his attention on the manufacture of violins. This change in focus led Masakichi to develop the first Japanese violin factory—a factory that, at the time, would be the largest such factory in the world.
Shin’ichi spent a good deal of his childhood working at his father’s factory (now known as the Suzuki Violin Co., Ltd.) As one might expect, Shin’ichi eventually found the inspiration to take up the bow for himself and learn to play. While some might think this would please his family, it is said that his father, Masakichi, felt it would be “beneath” Shin’ichi to be a performer. Undeterred by his father’s objections, in 1916, at the age of 17, Shin’ichi pursued the instrument on his own. Without access to formal instruction, his learning attempts were limited to listening to instrument recordings and attempting to imitate what he heard.
When Shin’ichi turned 26, his friend Marquis Tokugawa convinced Masakichi to allow Shin’ichi to leave Japan and travel internationally. It is said that during these travels, Shin’ichi would settle for several years in Germany to study under celebrated German violinist Karl Klinger. It is also claimed that Shin’ichi would meet several famous and influential individuals there, including Albert Einstein. While it is not clear that Shin’ichi formally studied with Klinger (or what the nature of his relationship with Einstein was), his time in Germany would provide the inspiration for a significant contribution that he would eventually make to the arena of education.
Dr. Shin’ichi Suzuki interacts with a young Suzuki learner.
Shin’ichi’s return to Japan in 1929, occurring amid the country’s long run-up to World War II, would lead to teaching positions at the Imperial School of Music and the Kunitachi Music School in Tokyo. It is at this point in the story that there seems to be some divergence among sources as to the event that set Shin’ichi on a path to teaching young children. Some say it began when he was asked to teach a 4-year-old child, while others say the idea grew from a conversation at a quartet rehearsal in 1933. In any case, whichever event or events set things in motion, what follows is always more or less the same.
While considering the question of how best to teach young students to play the violin, Shin’ichi realized that the answer was among his memories of the years he had spent in Germany. However, what he pondered wasn’t some piece of special instruction he received there–rather, it was the memories of his efforts to try and communicate with the people of Germany. Unfortunately, Shin’ichi did not speak the language and found its use quite a struggle. During his frustrations, he began to take special notice of how efficiently and effectively German children learned to speak the language fluently at their mother’s knee. Just as Japanese children absorbed the language of their parents, he realized that children across the globe likely acquired their first language or “mother tongue” through this same practice. They learned through a process of listening, mimicry, and repetition. With this in mind, Shin’ichi postulated that music, like language, could be taught in the same way. From then on, Shin’ichi would begin a process of applying the principles of language acquisition to musical training, leading to the framework of a training system that would produce impressively “high” levels of performance. The Suzuki Method was born.
Over the years, Shin’ichi’s educational efforts would grow and develop. By 1945, his evolving philosophies and practices were referred to as the “Talent Education” movement. His overall goal was to create “high ability” in one’s area of focus while contributing to the well-roundedness of the individual with a well-crafted, nurturing environment. A defining pillar of Suzuki’s teaching philosophy was that what many understood as talent was not some magical, inherited gift. Rather, he believed that talent was something you grow with education. He believed that with the proper education and environment, every child can reach expert levels of performance. In addition, Dr. Suzuki promoted collaboration over competitive attitudes between performers, advocating for collaborations whenever possible and mutual encouragement for those of every ability and level.
“Musical ability is not an inborn talent but an ability which can be developed. Any child who is properly trained can develop musical ability just as all children develop the ability to speak their mother tongue. The potential of every child is unlimited.“
– Dr. Shin’ichi Suzuki
Just like Dr. Suzuki predicted, Suzuki learners indeed developed fluency in musical performance by listening prior to reading and theory, engaging in mimicry and imitation, and enlisting in copious amounts of guided repetition. Years later, evidence from research into expert-level performance would support many of the operating beliefs that guided Dr. Suzuki’s efforts. In a 1994 paper published in American Psychologist by K. Anders Ericsson and Neil Charness, titled Expert Performance: Its Structure and Acquisition, wrote of colleague Dr. Howard Gardner’s observations of Suzuki learners. The authors stated, “[Gardner] reviewed the exceptional music performance of young children trained with the Suzuki method and noted that many of these children who began training without previous signs of musical talent attained levels comparable to music prodigies of earlier times and gained access to the best music teachers in the world. The salient aspect of talent, according to Gardner (1983), is no longer the innate structure (gift) but rather the potential for achievement and the capacity to rapidly learn material relevant to one of the intelligences. Gardner’s (1983) view is consistent with Suzuki’s rejection of inborn talent in music…”
In a later interview, Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, a Conradi Eminent Scholar and Professor of Psychology at Florida State University, stated of Suzuki’s method, “If you compare the kind of music pieces that Mozart can play at various ages to today’s Suzuki-trained children, he is not exceptional. If anything, he’s relatively average.“
Sadly, Dr. Shin’ichi Suzuki passed away in 1998, but the success of his namesake method continues to thrive today. While the system does have its critics and detractors, Dr. Suzuki’s system of teaching, based on the dynamics of language acquisition, has demonstrated it can effectively produce expert-level performance among its practitioners. A New York Times obituary for Dr. Suzuki described his method as “a worldwide phenomenon, with 400,000 students at any one time in 34 countries.”
I was fortunate enough to be born into a family that felt that music and visual art were vital components of a well-rounded education. In the arena of music, my siblings and I were encouraged to pursue the instrument or instruments of our choice, and while I can remember complaining about what I felt were “boring lessons” and strict practice schedules at the time, I do look back at the experience quite fondly (not to mention the joy I find in the fact that I did retain a modicum of musical ability all these many years later.) All of the training that I can remember, though, could be described as “traditional.” I wouldn’t become aware of Dr. Suzuki or his teaching methods until many years after my music lesson books were put away. Oddly enough, I first stumbled upon the Suzuki method while researching skill development related to visual arts training. Still, his methodology immediately resonated with me. It didn’t do so for any reason related to my past experiences with musical training; rather, it was the fact that I, too, arrived at many of the same conclusions that he did regarding skill building. I, too, felt that innate talent, as it was and is colloquially regarded, was a myth and that the dynamics of language acquisition could serve as an effective model for skill building. (The latter being the main reason that the curricula content collections I have made, which feature many elements of the Waichulis Curriculum, are named Visual Language Core and Visual Language I-III.)
Finding the work of Dr. Suzuki provided a huge boost to my confidence in my efforts to design a successful curriculum. But while a general framework of perception, mimicry, and repetition would indeed prove to be an effective armature for developing fluency with a system of conventions, success would still be determined by the nature of the elements placed on that armature. And those determinations, first and foremost, required a clearly defined set of learning outcomes.
Unfortunately, today, a dearth of quantifiable learning objectives and outcome assessments in many educational contexts often lead to their diminishment, or worse, their removal from a school’s offerings altogether. A 2007 New York Times article titled “Book Tackles Old Debate: Role of Art in Schools“ sheds some light on this issue by pointing out the long practice of justifying art education by primarily focusing on its contributions to other learning domains instead of the intrinsic values and benefits of artistic activities and development. No curriculum or curriculum components can be effectively assessed if the end goal is nebulous.
For my own curriculum, I identified the following learning outcomes:
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A consistent, demonstrable ability to engage in deliberate mark-making, to realize intention, in the service of visual communication and transmission of aesthetic qualities.
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A consistent, demonstrable ability to perceive and effectively utilize the conventions of visual communication deliberately.
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A consistent, demonstrable understanding of material dynamics, the ability to effectively navigate relevant technologies, and the ability to engage in sound and safe practices.
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A consistent, demonstrable understanding of, and ability to engage in, the appropriate practices and professional behaviors that may facilitate successful interactions with the larger art world.
In pursuit of these outcomes, students would follow a rational sequence of exercises that would include conventions ranging from the most fundamental elements of a visual vocabulary to highly complex configurations of information (e.g., representations/percept surrogates.) The general baseline path of fundamental visual communication elements would be (in the common terminology of this context) Dot>Line>Shape>Value>Form>Color. Since each subsequent activity in the curriculum after the initial one would be reliant upon “success” with the previous (with occasional intended exception), students would be required to demonstrate a good comprehension of, and consistent, adaptable proficiency with, the relevant elements before moving forward. Additionally, each carefully calibrated exercise should impact a number of relevant domains for the student, including, but not limited to, visual-spatial skills, visual analysis skills, visual integration skills, fine motor control, automaticity, strategic planning, information synthesis, and procedural fluency. As student experiences and the specific quality and efficacy of these experiences in producing the stated intended outcomes for all students are fundamental to the quality of any curriculum, I also needed to ensure that the content of the activities is supported by empirical research. As such, my curriculum would evolve to maintain the armature of language acquisition but would also adopt the principles of the most reliable evidence-based method of skill building: deliberate practice.
Defined by the psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and colleagues, Deliberate Practice is “the individualized training activities specially designed by a coach or teacher to improve specific aspects of an individual’s performance through repetition and successive refinement” (Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996, pp. 278–279). It involves rehearsal within a person’s zone of proximal development (defined as the space between what a learner can do without assistance and what a learner can do with adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers), ongoing performance assessment, tailored goal-setting, and close mentoring with expert feedback (Ericsson & Pool, 2016). In this form of practice, the primary focus is on a student’s individual skill threshold, holds an emphasis on interactive rehearsal for skill acquisition, and aims for higher levels of sustained effort. So, whereas the basic dynamics of language acquisition would provide the path to fluency with a visual language, deliberate practice would define the nature and schedule of the activities built into the perception, mimicry, and repetition armature.
So, how might this framework for visual arts training differ from many of the most popular methods of skill-based visual arts training today? In a manner similar to how Dr. Suzuki’s method differs from what is described as “traditional” training in music, my curriculum would differ from today’s “classical” training. To appreciate these key differences, though, I would like to describe what constitutes classical training today in the realm of skill-based fine arts training.
Many skill-based programs today continue to utilize effective courses of training that could be seen as adaptations of the effective curricula that defined the celebrated French academies of the past. With a strong prioritization on draftsmanship, these programs were systematic progressions through what some may describe as “classical disciplines” under the supervision of a “master” artist. The Academies would have strict protocols for picture making, which would include everything from particular color schemes to specific brush strokes–all in an effort to pursue specific aesthetic qualities and artistic ideals that can be attributed to Classical Antiquity.
This aesthetic leaning would lead the academies’ training programs to be saturated with classical influences—a saturation would easily convince an aspiring creative that such aesthetics should be considered paramount.
The French academic traditions were seen as fairly unchanging and followed a basic sequence:
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Students began with drawing, first from prints of Greek sculptures or select “Old Master” works.
Students would then move on to drawing plaster casts or originals of antique statuary from life.
After this, students would move on to figure drawing from live nudes, which was referred to as ‘drawing from life.’
At the end of each phase, student drawings were carefully assessed before they were allowed to advance in the program. Only after completing several years of drawing, as well as studies in geometry and human anatomy, were students allowed to paint: that is, to use color. In fact, there was no painting at all on the curriculum of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts until 1863. For an aspiring painter to learn how to paint, one had to join the workshop of an academician.
Today, many institutions that describe themselves as a source for “Classical” training in drawing and painting follow this French Academic program schedule somewhat faithfully. Current iterations of the Academic program are most often as follows:
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Students begin with several Bargue plate copies with occasional Old Master copies (this stage is often referred to as “drawing from the flat.”)
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Students move on to drawing plaster casts or originals of antique statuary as well as some possible still-life drawings.
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Students move on to figure drawings and portraiture drawing from a live model.
Unlike the French Academies prior to 1863, though, modern Ateliers and Academies today almost always offer a painting program that follows the completion of a drawing program. Modern painting programs often have students revisit the schedule of the drawing program—this time beginning with the plaster casts or originals of antique statuary in paint, moving on to still-life and portrait/figure work. Modern color theory and relevant material dynamics concepts often accompany the painting portion of this type of program.
In my years at The Schuler School of Fine Arts, after college, I, too, was immersed in a very similar curriculum in regard to structure and content. However, the program was designed with a more “college-esque” class schedule, which arranged a schedule of activities with more simultaneity than the strict serial Academic system described above. Like many other schools offering training described as traditional or classical, The Schuler school held a strong classical aesthetic leaning, which can be described as holding kinship with characteristics attributed to the “Old Masters.” In a school listing on the Art Renewal Center‘s website, the school is described as “training students in the methods and techniques of the European Old Masters. Assuring that future generations of artists receive the wisdom of the past while acquiring the creative freedom that only the mastery of traditional skills can provide.” During my time there, which I am also very grateful for, I would say that a classical aesthetic could be seen among the students’ efforts, at least in part, as a standard for success.
It should really go without saying at this point that the persistence of the classical training methods, as described here, is a testament to the enduring quality of its output. And while classically trained artists may hold the aforementioned aesthetic leaning, artists with this training are often regarded as highly skilled and capable of impressive manifestations of virtuosity. So why, then, would I not simply adopt this method of instruction as is? I mean, it did serve as a significant component of my own training—so why would I not then simply make the system available for the students seeking my instruction?
The fact is that my earliest curricula did, in fact, utilize several components from the traditions of classical training. My earliest students in a college setting, as well as my private studio, did engage in Old Master copies, drawings from antique statuary, and certain figure/portrait concentrations. However, the idea of promoting the aesthetic qualities of classical antiquity as some ideal to be pursued never quite sat right with me. Looking again to language as an analogy, I felt that an aspiring creative could be trained in a way so that one could become fluent in convention without the imposition of a particular dialect that might impact their future expressions or communications in a way that may be undesirable to them. As such, the classical elements of my program began to be replaced with training content that might be described as more “generic.” What I did realize, though, was that while the more generic elements were just as effective from a skill-building standpoint, they did lack some of the “romanticism” that many might seek as an enjoyable part of their art training experience. One of the criticisms that I have read regarding The Suzuki Method was also aimed at a certain lack of stimulation. In a piece written for Violinist.com, Founder, and Director of the Pascale Music Institute and Los Angeles Children’s Orchestra Susan Pascale writes, “With the traditional method, teachers strive not to bore their students; they look for ways to keep them stimulated, and move them forward, by teaching them new techniques and giving them new pieces, while revisiting problem areas as needed.” This criticism was in response to what is described as the Suzuki “perfection policy” which is described on one Suzuki training site as “Discipline in practicing the same piece over and over, up to perfection, is of major importance. One cannot go to the next piece until the studied piece can be performed perfectly. A studied piece is always a prelude to the next piece, and perfection is important no matter how boring the exercise might be.” With my removal of what may be seen as romantic notions from the training and a dynamic of progression that holds kinship with Suzuki’s perfection policy, I wondered if my evolving structure might bore artistic students, leading to a loss of excitement and motivation. However, I found reassurance in the work of K. Anders Ericcson once again. In his often-cited 1993 paper titled “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance,” Ericsson writes, “In contrast to play, deliberate practice is a highly structured activity, the explicit goal of which is to improve performance. Specific tasks are invented to overcome weaknesses, and performance is carefully monitored to provide cues for ways to improve it further. We claim that deliberate practice requires effort and is not inherently enjoyable. Individuals are motivated to practice because practice improves performance. In addition, engaging in deliberate practice generates no immediate monetary rewards and generates costs associated with access to teachers and training environments. Thus, an understanding of the long-term consequences of deliberate practice is important.” With this reassurance in tow, I decided to see to any loss of enjoyment or romantic notions of tradition by working harder to make students far more aware of the long-term consequences of their actions. In the studio, I would often talk about the neural underpinnings of learning and skill development, allowing students to better appreciate the role or contribution of each action in the “whole” of their training. Therefore, I didn’t have to “sell” the activity with fun or romantic connections to the past, nor did I have to struggle to avoid boredom—I just needed to explain to them in a way that they could understand why they were engaging in the practice. Another advantage in this area came from the fact that the environment I cultivated did not separate students of different skill levels or locations in the curriculum’s progression. Rather, students would work side by side with practitioners of all levels of development. This way, as Ericcson and others state, practitioners can simply look to others in their immediate environment for the evidence that the practice they are engaged in indeed improves performance. In addition to the motivation that may be found among fellow learners, it is also important that I, as instructor, can inspire and motivate through displays of consistently high-level performance in my own work. In fact, I would argue that in many cases, it is the performance of the instructor that encourages students to trust in guidance and instruction that may seem counterintuitive to the inexperienced (as is often the case.)
Motivations are also found through the public exhibition of creative works during training. Creative assignments strategically placed in the student’s schedule of activities allow for not only significant advancements in visual communication, career development, and professional practices, but they also provide a good amount of motivation for good practice behaviors in the classroom. Furthermore, the feedback from public exhibitions can supplement the expert-level feedback from instructors to offer additional valuable insights toward the continued development of an effective visual language. The strategy of public exhibition as motivation is also a component of the Suzuki Method for music. Of this, the Suzuki Association of the Americas states, “[Suzuki-trained students] appear on stage both as soloists and members of their teachers’ groups from the very beginning. The common repertoire serves as a built-in motivational mechanism: they are anxious to learn the pieces that the more advanced students are playing. Group classes, “play-ins,” performances in the community, solo recitals, graduation recitals, and summer institutes give them many reasons to practice and to share their achievements with others.”
By now, some may be quick to think, “Yes, but your skills were built from classical training, so why should your efforts be appropriate to promote a different training system?” In actuality, while it is true that a good deal of my skillsets emerged in good part from classical training, my lack of acceptance of the stylistic and aesthetic quality of Classical Antiquity as a universal ideal led me to engage in much practice outside of the curricula that I was enrolled in. Therefore, I spent much, if not all, of my available time outside the classroom, trying to become as deliberate as possible in my mark-making. And while I was not aware of the concepts of deliberate practice or systems similar to the Suzuki method, the idea of using language acquisition as a model for developing skills applicable to visual art guided much of my personal practice and development.
Modules and Submodules of the Curriculum
The current configuration of my curriculum is separated into two modules, referred to as The Language of Drawing (LoD) and the Language of Painting (LoP). The activities of both modules are very similar so as to provide the student with an advantageous revisiting of the concepts and practices they have encountered thus far (revisitation of past activities is something else that also occurs with Suzuki Method training as well as the more modern classical method of training as described above.) The similarity in content also allows the material dynamics, which are far more complex in the LoP, to receive adequate attention during that module’s activities. Lastly, the mirrored modules allow for the significant use of the automaticity developed in the LoD in the pursuit of painting, and offers an opportunity to further develop procedural fluency. For those who may not be familiar with both concepts, automaticity is the ability to perform tasks without occupying the mind with the low-level operations required. It is usually the result of learning, repetition, and practice. Procedural fluency is the ability to apply procedures accurately, efficiently, and flexibly; to transfer procedures to different problems and contexts; to build or modify procedures from other procedures; and to recognize when one strategy or procedure is more appropriate to apply than another. “A universal feature of human behavior is that well-practiced tasks can be performed with relatively little effort or cognitive control, whereas novice performance of the same task may require intense and effortful cognitive control (James, 1890). The ability to perform skilled tasks without the need for executive control is referred to as “automaticity,” and it has been extensively investigated by cognitive scientists over the past 40 years. A defining characteristic of automaticity is the ability to perform the automatized task with little or no interference by a demanding secondary task (Posner and Snyder, 1975; Logan, 1979).” -Poldrack, Russell A., et al. “The neural correlates of motor skill automaticity.” The Journal of Neuroscience 25.22 (2005): 5356-5364.”
Each of the two main modules (LoD, LoP) contains submodules which are as follows:
1. First Marks: The Waichulis curriculum begins with an introduction to the initial materials to be employed as well as the “atomic” elements of a visual vocabulary. This submodule requires that specific, basic materials are used to complete carefully calibrated exercises that include dot, line, and shape. A dynamic that is related to automaticity begins to occur here, which I often refer to as “thinking bigger.” It’s somewhat analogous to the concept of memory chunking (a process by which small individual pieces of a set of information are bound together to create a meaningful whole later in our memory. The chunks by which the information is grouped are meant to improve short-term retention of the material, thus bypassing the limited capacity of working memory and allowing the working memory to be more efficient.) For example, one of our initial exercises has students challenged with making straight, light-value lines that connect an origin and a destination point without the aid of a guide like a ruler. At the start of the exercise, student attention is often reported to be locked onto the pencil’s point. They initially perceive the entire line as more of a series of small movements linked together–not to mention the additional “line components” like origin location, pressure control, hand position, line weight, destination, etc…However, with practice, performance improvements are often accompanied by a reported shift in the perception of the line into a singular “whole.” Generally, during line execution, the focus moves from the pencil’s point to the intended destination and/or the “whole” of the line.
Also, here, I begin to make students aware of the many different types of sensory feedback they may or may not be attending to. Aside from our visual perceptions of the marks we are making, applying dry media onto an appropriate ground also offers a good amount of haptic (mechanosensory) and auditory feedback. Feeling or hearing how a pencil rakes across a surface can inform the practitioner of potentially advantageous adjustments to pressure, pitch, grip, etc.
The introduction of shape exercises following our initial line exercises offers students the first attempt at more formal mimicry. Unfortunately, many students are under the impression that they will learn to “see” more accurately with practice. This is also a myth. Regardless of what some claim, the fact that our visual system cannot provide an accurate window on the objective world around us has been known since the time of of George Berkeley (1709.) We just don’t have the biological or neural “hardware” for it. What we can develop and reinforce are useful associations between specific behaviors (i.e., motor tasks) and specific types of visual information. Again, mimicry tasks in this context cannot change the fundamental nature of your visual system to allow you to access objective properties or measurements of the physical world. (An interesting aside here is that in 2011 researchers Patrick Cavanaugh and Florian Perdreau carried out experiments to see if visual artists somehow saw the world more accurately, or more “veridically.” The resulting paper was titled “Do artists see their retinas?” I’ll save you time: they don’t. “Surprisingly, artists were as affected by context as non-artists in all three tests. Moreover, artists took, on average, significantly more time to make their judgments, implying that they were doing their best to demonstrate the special skills that we, and they, believed they had acquired. Our data therefore support the proposal from Gombrich that artists do not have special perceptual expertise to undo the effects of constancies. Instead, once the context is present in their drawing, they need only compare the drawing to the scene to match the effect of constancies in both.”
Introductions to basic measurement techniques occur in this submodule in a way that is similar to some aspects of the classical ‘drawing from the flat’ activities. Transparency models are used to gauge success objectively.
2. Governing the Material for Complex Representation: Expanding on the previous section, this phase takes an in-depth look at more complex material dynamics as well as the benefits of improving both gross and motor controls. More complex aspects of visual perception are introduced while increasingly challenging activities push for an increased reliance on feedback sensitivity. Activities in this section build on the dot, line, and shape to introduce concepts of value and volume (form.) Bigger thinking is promoted further as confidence in material handling grows. Artists continue to engage in strict mimicry exercises from strategically designed model sheets that feature a carefully selected range of value transitions. In the painting or LOP module, this submodule and First Marks are combined. Basic color theory and strategies are also introduced here in the LoP.
This submodule concludes with students recreating the experience of perceiving a three-dimensional reference model (percept surrogate) for the first time with an exercise called the Waichulis Form Box. The reference box contains several basic geometric solids, or ‘forms,’ that can be configured in a number of ways so as to compare and contrast the way light describes each. Students work to replicate the appearance of a chosen box configuration to the best of their ability. This is a very special activity within the curriculum as it helps to bridge the conceptual gap between the two-dimensional image and the three-dimensional world.
Additionally, the activity primes the student to uncover more meaningful answers in the submodules that follow. This latter function can sometimes confuse onlookers as the location of the form box activity in the sequence of exercises in the curriculum may seem rather unintuitive. More specifically, most tend to expect that an exercise like the Waichulis Form Box might be a more successful endeavor following the in-depth work with basic geometric solids that takes place in the subsequent submodule. However, I argue that there is far more advantage in the priming effects found with attempting the full Form Box prior to the in-depth study of the geometric solids as the effort tends to generate extremely useful questions and experiences that make the information presented in the study of the solids far more impactful, increasing the chances of long-term retention of the relevant information.
The Waichulis Form box exercise also sees the introduction of a number of measurement techniques like sight-size, comparative measurement, canonical construction, and for some, the Dürer grid.
3. Form Perception and the Communication of Volume: This submodule contains a lengthy exploration of rudimentary geometric solids such as spheres, cylinders, cones, and cubes. The student learns how different configurations of shape and value can elicit perceptions of very specific three-dimensional volumes. This submodule contains the greatest amount of repetition in the entire program. In a manner similar to Dr. Suzuki’s “perfection policy,” artists at this phase engage in the repeated construction of rudimentary forms repeatedly until performance is consistent. Some speculate that our artists are working to create the “perfect sphere” or “perfect cylinder,” but the specific configurations presented for these automaticity-building repetitions are designed with what are arguably the most common canonical tonal components, or “root phrases” that communicate specific types of illuminated volumes (which has more to do with human perceptions than some recurring state of the objective world.) The geometric solid repetitions are also one of the largest pushes to “think bigger.” A good amount of automaticity is found with this exercise as students report a general move from greater concentration on the component parts to a greater focus on the “whole” (like the early line exercises) of the representations. Additionally, some students reported thinking even bigger, finding themselves attending to the appearance of the rows or columns of representations as the exercise sheets are populated with the representations in a matrix pattern.
When the student reaches the first geometric form to be studied (the sphere is up first as it is the only solid that does not encounter significant changes to general shape due to changes in orientation and perspective), they are to engage in their first Creative Replication Project. The projects are activities designed to allow our apprentices to explore subjects of their choice while they are immersed in the challenging and repetitive exercises of the form repetitions. While the vast majority of the content parameters of these projects are left to the individual, faithful replication of select references is absolutely mandatory. Through the student’s deliberate and confident verisimilitude, their developing skill sets can be observed and cultivated.
Students may explore any subject or genre when embarking on a Creative Replication project. A “rendered” or “clean” finish is required so as to challenge the student to manage a highly complex balance of appropriate visual information and increasingly sophisticated material handling. While these activities often get this program pegged as the colloquial ‘photorealism’ curriculum, this exercise allows the student to experience one of the most powerful, and often most complex, forms of pictorial visual communication, the percept surrogate. The percept surrogate is a configuration of visual elements that aims to elicit a perceptual experience that emulates, as closely as appropriately possible, a perceptual experience of the actual subjects represented. In the context of representational art, the percept surrogate would occupy one end of the “objective art” spectrum. Personally, I prefer to use the term percept surrogate in this context as other terms for this type of representation may imply the use of personal stylizations and artistic license. Honestly, it is no surprise that viewers almost always classify these efforts as ‘photorealistic’ as photography is one of the most common forms of percept surrogacy that people are familiar with.
I would also like to take a moment here to address a common negative criticism that we receive regarding student output. It is that “All of the student artwork looks alike. There are no individual voices or styles.” Unfortunately, this type of criticism demonstrates a significant deficit in one’s understanding of and appreciation for the nature of effective training in a system of convention. An effective training system like this requires a level of conformity to, or adherence to, a baseline standard that should be seen in all of the student output. Imagine seeing this critique being offered in an elementary class, learning the alphabet, learning to count, or learning to read. “Everyone’s numbers and letters look the same.” It sounds ridiculous, no? While I would argue that early elements of these aspects of the artists’ work are indeed subtly present, at the very least in terms of content, adherence to the baseline practices and goals within the curriculum should result in work that looks extremely similar from student to student. There is a time to focus on distinguishing oneself through individual style and voice, but it is after a certain proficiency with the baseline conventions is developed. We are working to ensure that an artist’s voice or style is as deliberate as the marks they choose to make. Again, ineptitude should not be confused with artistic license.
4. Advanced Visual Communication and Capstone(s): The section consists of the exploration of concepts that include advanced ‘finishing’ practices, increasing resolution, increasing information synthesis, and advanced concepts of visual communication. This section also sees the student engage in a capstone project. For years, the final drawing challenge within my curriculum was to demonstrate the skills that students have garnered by tackling a large composition that had been assembled by colleagues in the program. This final challenge had become known as The Gauntlet. As our program evolved, though, students gained more and more input regarding the content and composition of their own Gauntlet, resulting in the challenge becoming more of a final creative work that aimed to celebrate all of the skills that the student has grown up to this point. However, today, many students in the program still affectionately refer to this drawing capstone as The Gauntlet.
In a manner similar to more modern classical approaches to training, the second half of the curriculum, Language of Painting, revisits the submodules listed here, adding the elements and activities that highlight paint dynamics and concepts about color.
One of the biggest issues to come up now and again regarding the content of our painting program is my usage of concepts from traditional color theory as opposed to more robust modern color theory models. There are myriad reasons for this that I can delve into, but for this paper, I’d rather share the more general idea with this adapted excerpt from another paper I wrote years ago.
During a recent neuroscience class I attended, two useful, but very different models for neuronal activity in certain contexts were put forward: The McCulloch-Pitts model (MCP) and the Rall model. The McCulloch-Pitts model (MCP) is an extremely simple artificial neuron model with inputs and outputs that could be either a zero or a one, with each synaptic input being either excitatory or inhibitory. The dynamic of the MCP model was to simply sum the inputs. The Rall model is far more complex, incorporating certain spatial and temporal attributes that allow for a far more robust view of neuron mechanics.
While listening to a teacher’s walkthrough of these two neuron models, I noticed his great emphasis on considering the utility of a model by its resolution or “granularity.” He explained that we should utilize whatever level of resolution is relevant, in terms of modeling, to maximize utility in an effort to understand the phenomena under investigation. While the opportunity to incorporate many details into our model may exist—we may only need a simplified abstraction to comprehend the mechanics of a phenomenon.
As his lecture continued, he went on to present two well-known sculptures to further solidify this point. He placed Rodin’s “The Kiss” next to Constantin Brancusi’s 1907-08 sculpture of the same title. He then explained that while Rodin’s kiss was indeed a more representational simulation of an actual kiss—the Brancusi piece was able to communicate the essence, or the abstract of the idea (a kiss), without numerous details that may cloud the concept. It was a very interesting demonstration.
This emphasis on model resolution really hit home for me as it is a concept I have been trying to communicate regarding the Itten Color wheel and the Munsell Colors System for some time. The Itten Wheel (IW) is my “MCP” model. It is an abstract illustrative organization of “generic color” intended to illustrate simplified hue relationships. The wheel contains twelve hues: three primary, three secondary, and six intermediate colors. While the configuration of hues populating IW is not an accurate depiction, in any way, of what many understand as “colorspace,” the adaptable abstract allows the observer to make gross predictions regarding the general behavior of available pigments.
The Munsell Color system, on the other hand, is a far more substantial color model. It consists of three independent dimensions, which can be represented as an irregular, somewhat cylindrical, color solid: hue, measured by degrees around horizontal circles; chroma, measured radially outward from the neutral (gray) vertical axis; and value, measured vertically from 0 (black) to 10 (white). By incorporating these additional attributes of color, users can more accurately and consistently communicate specific colors and chart controlled courses through “colorspace.”
While I would not be one to argue the above-mentioned benefits of the Munsell Color System, it is the compact abstraction of the Itten Wheel that provides me with the greatest utility for my painting endeavors. It can offer a relative frame of reference by which I can make informed decisions amidst either a pedantic or organic painting process. I can look to any color I am working with—and within the framework communicated by the IW–I can navigate with reasonable success.
It is important to note that elements of both traditional and modern color theories are presented to my students, and further investigation resources are always made available. Students may settle on the color concepts and heuristics that best serve their needs.
CURRICULUM SCHEDULES: (While the baseline curriculum is shown below, strengthener and enhancer supplementary elements, available in the Visual Language Core documents on the anthonywaichulis.com website, may be added to ensure students have the most productive experience possible.)
LANGUAGE OF DRAWING
First Marks:
DOT, LINE
Materials introduction
Origin-Destination Exercises
Origin-Destination Diagnostic Wheel
SHAPE
Shape Replication Exercises
Optional: Notan Portrait Exercises
Optional: Bargue Linear Construction Exercises
Governing the Material for Complex Representation:
VALUE
Pressure Scale Exercises
Gradation Block Exercises
FORM
Gradation Pattern Exercises
Form Box Exercises
Form Perception and the Communication of Volume:
THE SPHERE
Sphere Build Exercises (all phases)
Sphere “Lifework”
Sphere Cumulative Drawing
THE CYLINDER
Cylinder Build Exercises (all phases)
Ellipse Chart
Cylinder “Lifework”
Cylinder Wheel
Cylinder Cumulative Drawing
THE CONE
Cone Build Exercises (all phases)
Cone “Lifework”
Cone Wheel
Cone Cumulative Drawing
THE CUBE
Cube Build Exercises (all phases)
Cube “Lifework”
Cube Wheel
Cube Cumulative Drawing
CREATIVE PROJECTS: Each apprentice must complete at least 3, but no more than 4, creative drawing projects during the painting section of the program. This could include the Gauntlet or the final capstone drawing project.
Advanced Visual Communication and Capstone(s): Drawing Capstone, or “Gauntlet,” Project
LANGUAGE OF PAINTING
First Marks:
DOT, LINE
Materials introduction
Origin-Destination Exercises
Origin-Destination Diagnostic Wheel
SHAPE
Shape Replication Exercises
Optional: Notan Portrait Exercises
Optional: Bargue Linear Construction Exercises
Governing the Material for Complex Representation:
VALUE and COLOR
B&W Pressure Scale Exercises
RYB Pressure Scale Exercises
Basic Palette Color Chart Exercise
Gradation Block Exercises
FORM
Gradation Pattern Exercises
Form Box Exercises
Form Perception and the Communication of Volume:
THE SPHERE
Sphere Build Exercises (all phases)
Sphere Build (Color) (all phases)
Sphere “Lifework”
Sphere Cumulative Painting
THE CYLINDER
Cylinder Build Exercises (all phases)
Cylinder Build Exercises (Color) (all phases)
Ellipse Chart
Cylinder “Lifework”
Cylinder Wheel
Cylinder Cumulative Painting
THE CONE
Cone Build Exercises (all phases)
Cone Build Exercises (Color) (all phases)
Cone “Lifework”
Cone Wheel
Cone Cumulative Painting
THE CUBE
Cube Build Exercises (all phases)
Cube Build Exercises (Color) (all phases)
Cube “Lifework”
Cube Wheel
Cube Cumulative Painting
CREATIVE PROJECTS: Each apprentice must complete at least 3, but no more than 4, creative painting projects during the painting section of the program.
Advanced Visual Communication and Capstone(s): Painting Capstone Project
A Note about Portrait and Figure Work
It is important to note that while pragmatic efforts to communicate concepts about aspects of perception and visual communication cause it to appear that we primarily focus on the still-life genre, our aim is to focus on foundational mark marking for effective and efficient visual communication. This focus develops skill that can be applied to any genre of objective or non-objective art.
At the ÀNI Art Academies, however, we do include mandatory, weekly portrait/figure drawing and painting sessions. These sessions are often not presented as classes per se, as the goal or function of the sessions differs to a degree from what you might find with many other representationalist art schools, university programs, and ateliers/academies. The primary focus of the exercise in our curriculum is not necessarily to learn specific methodologies and procedures for portraiture and figure work—but rather to provide an experience where students can learn to contend with large amounts of “conceptual contamination” during an observational representationalist task.
A good deal of our practices in observational representationalism involve methods to police the information that we are attending to. This can often involve some type of masking or filtering of visual information for myriad reasons. We mainly focus on two types of filtering: physical masking and procedural or conceptual masking.
Physical masking is the practice of contending with distracting information by making useful changes to the contextual surround of a particular reference target (think of using a color checking device for comparison with Munsell chips or drawing/painting from isolated grid squares with a grid system.)
Conceptual or procedural masking is the practice of guiding attention to specific, often abstracted aspects of the entire subject or visual field while attempting to minimize attention to all else. (For example, one part of our portrait exercise process is to focus ONLY on the perceived notan (the major interlocking shapes of the perceived light pattern while attempting to ignore all else.))
