We got off to a great start this morning when the second, third, and fourth year students joined us around the table for coffee and a welcome back discussion of summer activities. The Atelier students and faculty are such a wonderful bunch of people – I really felt right at home.

After lunch we met with Juliette to go over the project list for the coming year. I have my work cut out for me – the list is huge with several fully rendered drawings from month-long poses in the life room, and about twenty studio projects including two Bargue Plate copies, another master copy, a fully rendered cast drawing, and a fully rendered still life drawing.

Juliette and David gave a number of great pearls of wisdom, including

• You have been called to do this – no one ends up here by accident.
• You are only competing with yourself.
• Their job is to find our weakest areas and hammer on them all year long.
• You will feel utterly persecuted (it’s not personal – we pay them to do it).
• You should brace yourselves for an emotional ride. It happens to everyone and if you are not prepared for it you will be caught off guard.
• Learning art is like training for Olympic greatness. Sometimes our coaches will crush our swim goggles so that we learn to swim with water in our eyes.
• There’s nothing about drawing that should be fun. It is like a marriage after ten years. Still worthwhile, but not always fun.

Tomorrow morning we start in the life room with some gestural warm ups and then lots of block-ins. Our afternoons will be spent on more block-ins of plaster casts and we will embark on eight weeks of Barnstone’s analytical drawing excercises. Top it all off with rendering basic white spheres and a master copy here and there. Should be fun!