
My Mission & Philosophy
"Do what you love, and you will never work a day in your life" is a quote that resonates with me. Another statement that vibrates intensely with me is that life is about leaving impressions in people's hearts by the value we offer and making a positive impact in this world. Combine these two and I believe one might find their reason for being, in other words, their vocation.
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Growing up during a time when the society did not show value for the arts as a career, I went into science. Nonetheless, you would always find me with a book in hand, engrossed in a story or drawing a cartoon. I strove for many years toward a PhD and eventually dropped out of one as it wasn't working out for me. And I thank the heavens that it turned out that way. Because today, I can do what I truly love everyday of my life. And that is create stories and paint my imagination.
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I also firmly believe that a business should never be about just money, and the knowledge and services provided must never be curbed or limited based on whether one gets customers. This happens quite a lot from my experience as a teacher, where I have been restricted from providing the time and quality content required for my student's successful art journey. And I have seen the frustration it has caused students who pay a ton of fees, and the quality they receive is often deficient and inadequate.
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Therefore, this art school is a passion project where I endeavor to provide quality art education to not only hobby artists, but also to help people like me who were unable to pursue their dream in art. My online classes are aimed at children, teens and adults looking to not only improve their creativity and drawing/painting skills, furthermore, it can provide them with the foundations for a primary or back up career in the art and animation industry. I offer personalized mentoring with feedback, critique and tailored content according to the age and needs of the student. If you are someone like me who dreams of having a career and life creating art, I would love to be a humble part of that vision and turn it into an achievable goal. A foundational stepping-stone if you must.
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Honest Disclosure:
You will always find me giving you the truth straight up, which holds for what I am about to say below.
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This art school is for serious and devoted artists who want to achieve mastery, and who have a passion for art.
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What you will not find in my classes are show pieces that tell you or the parents, "Look how beautifully you/your child has painted this piece of art; see how wonderfully we teach here."And then you go home, and you/your child wants to draw something using the same process and there is a lot of struggle to achieve the same "wow" effect.
Why does this happen?
The answer is that drawing, like any other art form, is a skill that one must train and practice towards proficiency.
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An aspect that is scarcely mentioned is that it takes years to get to the stage where one can draw from imagination. People generally understand that it takes years of learning and hard work to perform Arangetram in Bharatanatyam, and even longer to choreograph new dance sequences which requires mastery. Or that it takes time to become a musician and even longer to compose one's own, and that one must study through the primary stages in a progressive series to get to that professional level. Yet, for art, people expect to create a Mona Lisa after a few months or paint new universes from imagination. That is not how it works.
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And I'm not here to run a profit by doing quick show pieces. I want you to be able to paint a million beautiful pieces, even decades down the road, with the fundamentals that I teach.
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Therefore, in my art school, I will be advancing through a curriculum that will enable my students to grow sequentially into proficient artists. As I mentioned earlier, I will give you honesty upfront: this process will take time. I will not give you show-pieces, but I will provide you with a progressive growth pattern that you can watch month by month, year by year. I am eager to provide my students with the rudiments of what they need, so they can build upon it and become professional artists. Having said this, I am also limited to 8 classes per month, and I cannot conduct classes indefinitely as that would not be fair to you financially. And 8 days out of 30 is not enough practice. Professional artists who are established in the industry train by drawing and painting daily to improve themselves. Therefore, I'd encourage my students to draw and practice everyday/as much as possible in addition to the classes so that they can see concrete results and have "Aha!" moments providing deeper understanding of the art fundamentals.
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Also, since my background is in animation art, my focus will be geared toward that. We will train using graphite pencil in the earlier stages. Thereafter, I will move on to digital drawing and painting using Photoshop and a graphic tablet.