Hello (finally) from the big apple!

So first off I want to apologise for the delay in my getting this blog started and going! From now on I am going to try my very best to update this once a week to let you all know how my experience studying at New York Academy of Art is going and life in general here in the city, I also want to apologise upfront, unfortunately I wasn't gifted with my fathers wonderful writing skills and so my writing may be a little rough around the edges - I guess thats one of the many reasons why I paint, I use the paintbrush to do the talking.

So anyway, I have now been out here for eight weeks and so far it has been a whirlwind of experiences, I can certainly understand why people say NYC is the city that never sleeps. Theres always something to see or do. The school (NYAA) is absolutely everything I dreamed it would be and more. I'm learning so much and already feel I've come so far in the little time I've been here. This first semester is divided into five classes; Anatomy, Art and Culture, Painting I (direct painting), The History and Theory of Composition and Figure Drawing. One thing I absolutely need to say is how amazed I am by how well the school is run, every single person who works for NYAA does their job to the very best of their abilities, they all exude the feeling that they truly love their jobs and its such an inspiring thing to be surrounded by. The school is very small with only around 50 students in each year of the two year graduate school so theres just over 100 in total and I can say with complete honesty that I am surrounded by some of the most talented people I have ever met, theres not one student who has poor work and due to its small size theres a real family feel to the place and everyone is keen to help each other.

I have been kept very busy so far, being in the studio normally seven days a week! Doing homework mostly but it's in no way a chore. In anatomy we are learning how each bone in the body works and what it looks like. Art and Culture is essentially art history and we are scrupulously going through each art movement from 1850 to 1950 (roughly). My Painting I tutor, Dik Liu has been great in teaching us to paint from life going through the ins and outs of technique and application paying particular attention to teaching us how light can be portrayed on canvas. Composition is definitely one of my favourites at the moment as its something I have neglected to look into before, we've gone through sacred geometry, Florentine vs Venetian form and my favourite so far, metaphorical composition. Our final project for this class is to create a metaphorical composition of our own, which I'll be sharing with you all soon as we just started work on that this past week. Figure drawing is great too, a class I've always enjoyed but this one in particular expands our knowledge and process a lot.

Lastly, this past monday I helped out at one of the two main Academy fundraisers, 'Take home a Nude.' This is an annual event held at Sotherby's in which many well established artists along with students from the school donate some of their work which denotes in some way 'the nude' to be auctioned off for the Academy to go towards our scholarships and improving the school in general. It was an amazing event to behold! All of New Yorks finest came out to see and bid, I believe there were around 700 guests. One of the highlights for me was watching the live auction where a commission from painter Will Cotton went for a staggering $85,000! All in all we managed to raise over a million dollars for the school!

I do miss home but I am definitely doing my best to grab this opportunity with both hands and take all I can from it. I am loving it so far and I am very proud to be part of such an amazing school.

Thanks for reading folks! Expect another post in a weeks time!

Sx