Speaker: Mary Kate , USA
Mary Kate : Hello my name is Mary kate and I'm from California.
Can you show us some of your Draw Awesome artwork that you're most pleased with?
Mary Kate : Here's a drawing from the charcoal module. This is the Sunflower. I really love how this drawing turned out. I was very uncomfortable with charcoal when we first started out, but with Phil's expert guidance, we were able to... I was able to do this. Just the highlighting and being able to make this shadowing effect makes that Sunflower be 3D! It's unbelievable what Phil has been able to teach us! Not only is Phil teaching us how to do things, but after he has taught us how to do something, he then also challenges us to do something on our own, after he's taught us something in the animal module, which is part of the graphite and charcoal module. This is my challenge piece to do three animals and these I did without Phil's instruction. I had to just choose three animals and I'm really, really pleased with how they came out. I was able to do that without instruction from Phil, but based on all of the criteria that Phil had already taught us. So I'm really pleased that I'm able to do the work after all of the instruction that Phil has given and using his foundations to go ahead and take it to the next step and do it by myself.
Before starting Draw Awesome, what was your level of art experience and what did you struggle with?
Mary Kate : Before I started Draw Awesome, I was the kind of artist that liked to just draw things and doodle. For example, I would always draw things that I was thinking about. So here, I was planning for my son's 50th birthday and what I would send to him for his 50th birthday. So I would always draw that sort of thing. But a sketch of gifts that were gonna go into a box is not art. The other types of things that I would draw would be whimsical types of things. Here's a whimsical owl... It's not really art but it made me feel good. I always had a lot of fun when I was a kid. When I was seven years old I used a little pin and I scratched pictures into my Dad's walnut desk. He had an absolute fit! And so he enrolled me in painting lessons. And so for Mmm... 10 years, I took private painting lessons but it didn't make me an artist. But it made me love art! So I've always wanted to do art. I grew up, I became a scientist but now that I'm retired, I've always wanted to go back to doing art.
How do you think Draw Awesome has helped you?
Mary Kate : I have learned so much in Draw Awesome. I found out about it from a girlfriend who was taking Draw Awesome and she suggested that I do it in order to improve my skills - and I improved practically overnight! I started out with the graphite module - - and let me just show you an example of how much I've improved. This is a picture that I drew of my son and his girlfriend in August before I started the Course. So this is the two of them and then I did the Course and this is a busker and you can see just the difference in the shading how much depth of character there is in the faces, in the cloth, in the fabric... There is so much in just the perceptive - - perspective, so much that I have learned in the Draw Awesome Course. And this is something that I had never learned before when I was taking painting lessons or if I had learned them at age seven, I didn't remember them all these many years later, so I'm I'm thrilled what Phil is teaching us. And then besides drawing, we also are learning charcoal, watercolours, coloured pencils... There are many modules to this Course, all of which have new concepts that are being added and are building on the foundation that is teaching in each of the modules. So it's a thrilling Course and you'll see your improvements overnight!
Finally, what are some of the things you like most about Draw Awesome and would you recommend it to others?
Mary Kate : Some of the things that I like about this Course that Phil's designed, is the way it's set up in that he sets it up with building blocks, beginning with graphite, then charcoal, then pen and ink, then he adds in the colours courses, so that you begin with a nice foundation before you take on the complicated stuff. Now I'm not very far into this Course, but already my foundation is very solid so that I feel that I can take on some more of the complexities. The other thing that's nice about it is that each of the modules are about a month long and so each week you get a new picture to do and it takes you about a week to get it done. Or, at least it takes me about a week to get it done! You could probably get it done in two or three days, depending on your time frame. And then when you're done with the whole module, there's a Rest Week and in that Rest Week you can either do something that's a challenge or you can rest, or you can catch up on anything that you didn't get done. So there's plenty of time built in to get everything finished before the next module begins. The program is very affordable from a US dollars perspective. And you only get charged for the month that you're in. In addition, if you're going on vacation, you can put it on pause and then when you come back from vacation, it can start again. So it's wonderful the way it's set up. I really enjoy the course and I feel like I'm learning a lot.
