Drawing from observation, or “Life Drawing,” has and continues to be one of the foundational practices of most traditional, academic artistic methods in the western canon, and for good reason-- visual artists must know how to translate the world they see into an image, and drawing from life is the best way to learn. Regardless, from time to time students find themselves asking-- why am I drawing so many apples? Instructor Ray Mack spent her early artistic education with similar questions. Like many others, she drew a lot of apples before arriving at her own style- comical, distorted, made-up scenes… sometimes even a made-up apple or two. “Apples to Blapples” focuses on combining the best of both traditional academic practices and of your most original, bombastic imagination for the betterment of both. In this course, students will learn classical life drawing (no apples, though) as a jumping off point for creating images without references from which to observe-- those that exist only in our own minds. Through a combination of traditional observational still life and non-traditional application of these techniques, we’ll build a toolkit for success in drawing all things real and imagined.