>>5827770I find that oh-so-empowering title to be a bit of a turn off already, but it might be decent, who knows.
In my experience very few art teachers are skilled, competent draftsmen in their own right. And when I say "skilled, competent" I mean able to execute a drawing of what they see in front of them that isn't just copying what a camera sees, but what their eyes can see in an exacting way. Value, edge quality, the effect of light, a bit of texture. These sort of things.
Old masters were very much capable of doing this, but they chose not to. Titian comes very close to painting what he sees in certain pictures, but this is the exception rather than the rule. Old master works follow a mannered system of their times because that's what was expected of them. They were capable of much more.
I'll give a very basic example: almost everyone gets values wrong. I remember Jeff Watts expressed this in one of his videos where he point blank said that if someone doesn't have an eye for value, that it cannot be fixed/taught/whatever. I used to categorize this comment as one of his usual blowhard attitudes, but then I started seeing this over and over again in people's works. And it's like, what the fuck is going on here, are they just lazy? But no.
A lot of work I see from teachers is there... 80% of the way. It depends on their background - animators obviously won't have use for tight rendering, but regardless. Proper value relations is the difference between a piece looking good and a piece glowing in atmosphere. It's difficult to teach this because it's difficult to see it to begin with. Your eyes have to be tuned to it.
I usually pitch Brent Evinston's video series here because it's a good path for someone starting out to get an idea, but Brent's own work reminds me of my own early works before I knew WTF I was doing. He's first and foremost a teacher, so it goes that he may not have put in the adequate time into really honing "fine" workmanship.
