If you think you want one of these career paths, please start early! Look for courses that teach perspective, basic eye training, principles of composition, and the language of traditional drawing and painting. Many schools, like Max the Mutt, offer summer courses like “Learn To Draw,” our four week intensive that runs in July. By the summer after your second year in high school you should be looking for courses like this one! Get started! Like learning to play an instrument, or becoming a professional athlete, you can’ t do it overnight. You need to understand the basic principles and then you need lots of practice.

You also need to look at great drawings and paintings. Reach out to the greats of the past. Artists like Rembrandt, Daumier, Velasquez, Goya, Vermeer…the list goes on and on. Be adventurous! Go to a good book store and look through the art section. Look for representational artists.Check out the great Japanese wood block artists Hokusai, Utamaro, and Hiroshige. Start you book collection. Sometimes you can buy secondhand .

Start doing copies from the masters. We use “Drawing lessons From The Great Masters,” by Robert Beverly Hale, as part of first year studies. This book will give you great instruction and great drawings! We also use “Hawthorne on Painting,” by Charles Hawthorne, “Bridgman’s Complete Guide To drawing from Life,” by George Bridgman, and “The Natural Way To Draw,” by Kimon Nicolaides.. These books will give you an idea of how to approach learning to draw and paint. If you have questions for me, feel free to leave comments and I’ll answer.

This intensive overview of the human form is designed to give the art student a strong understanding of how the human body is built.

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Featuring 2nd and 3rd year student art work

A great opportunity to take a tour of the school, view graduating student demo reels

If Max the Mutt were forced to be degree granting,  some of our graduates now working as animation directors, 3D and 2D animators, character designers and storyboard artists, would have been blocked from entering these careers because they don’t have the academic credentials to be accepted into a degree program. This would have been a loss to them and to the industry.

That is not to say that we don’t have many university graduates among our student body, as well as people who could meet the academic requirements for a BA but choose to be in a community where they can direct all their energy towards developing their skills. Part of what makes Max the Mutt such an interesting and vital community is the diversity of the student body.

Equally important to us is our ability to hire the individuals we feel are best suited to teach particular courses - people with current industry experience. Most of these people (Ty Templeton, Dave Ross, Tina Seemann for example) do not have degrees. They are simply among the best in their disciplines and have a knack for teaching.

Degree granting schools need to hire people who hold a degree one level higher than those they are teaching. In our minds this doesn’t make sense in areas that are essentially not academic. We are training people for careers. They will be hired based on their skills and professionalism, not on the basis of a piece of paper. You do not need to be licensed to animate, or write a graphic novel, or do concept art. What matters is what you know, what you can do, and your ability to work well with other people and be professional. These are the qualities that companies are looking for, not academic degrees.

I may not write every week, because, like you, I need a complete change and a rest to re-energize myself, and I plan to get back to painting.

My best to all of you for a happy, productive spring and summer.

PS If you’re in Toronto, do visit our graduate show which opens to the public May 30th.