Hello Jungle,
today it is time for another private coaching review. This time Roman got visited by a group of students with a really interesting topic. Alex, Paul and Marcus asked me to teach them how to become more creative while going through a project. Not only in terms of ideas, also in the way how you can approach your figure, technically and conceptually.
Well, several new things for me:
- Teaching a small group of students in the same topic. Preparing myself for it is different if it is a one on one coaching session.
- The topic: Creativity. Wikipedia says: "Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a literary work, or a painting)."
I'd say in miniature painting creativity is something we all already got. Everyone who is painting a figure has it. Some do not know how to set it aflame and do not trust in their ideas. This new topic to teach really killed some brain cells on my side on how to literally teach it to others, but I made a plan ...
While at a friends place I made a sketch on this bust by Pegaso Models.
Using my fingers and some primary acrylics. It was amazing how many steps of my vision are already included in this concept. I now have to break them down to make it easier to follow. 
The bust shows Jacques de Molay, last grandmaster of the order of the Templars, who got burned alive in Paris. If you want to know more about Jacques de Molay, check Wikipedia on this topic.
Well, I had a plan now. Still unsure if everything will work out, like I wanted, excited to see my students arrive to my teaching plan. My plan also was to stay creative as a teacher in case something goes wrong. Creating a teaching concept that works for students is the hardest part in teaching.
"When we headed to Augsburg we had no clue what the next two days of painting madness would bring.
As I don’t want to spoil the experience for anybody who is willing to do this creative quest I give just some outlines:
- The welcome was warm and friendly
- Roman managed to force us out of our comfort zone several times and magically pulled us back into the known territory of miniature painting
- It was far from what I expected, but definitely one of the best learning experiences I had in regard of miniature painting.
- You can paint things by burning other stuff! Oh Yeah.
- The beer in Augsburg was excellent.
Summarizing the whole experience I must say I would definitely do
it all over again as it changed my approach to miniature painting from a
quite technical point to a more creative approach, which is way more
fun and rewarding.
Overall: The most fun you can have with your pants on."
- Alex
My students homework was to arrive prepared and to know the story and life of Jacques de Molay. With coffee in hand we talked about it and then I killed it all, by tasking them with finding a new topic and story for the model. Let's get creative :)
All our four plans had to be discussed and creative juices were flowing.
Followed by painting sessions where we switched the models during different stages we all learned a lot. After explanations from my side, we started with some finger painting sessions - then switched the four models for the next session - and continued to work on it further by just using a sponge and paint.
Basic sketches, done by our fingers and sponges.
Jaques de Molay as a Templar.
Jaques de Molay as a Templar.
Gulliver's travels ...
The captain during the ship's mutiny
The priest, caught by a not so friendly tribe on an island
We continued on and on with still switching the model from one person to the other for several steps and we all had to think double time to achieve the result of this stage that would fit in the individual idea and vision and technical approach.
"Vor einiger Zeit hatte ich das große Vergnügen wieder an einem
private Coaching bei Roman teilnehmen zu können, diesmal mit zweien
meiner Malfreunde.
Dass Roman ein großartiger, lustiger und
freundlicher Kerl ist und dass seine private coachings super sind,
dürfte sich bereits ausreichend herumgesprochen haben. Da es bereits mein zweites Coaching war und ich auch letztes mal komplett von
Romans Konzept überrascht wurde, ließ ich das Thema "kreatives Malen"
diesmal einfach mich zu kommen.
Es begann damit, dass Roman
uns bat, eine bestimmte Büste zu besorgen, die ich mir nie selbst
gekauft hätte und die zusätzlich schon ein sehr striktes Thema vorgab
(der letzte Großmeister der Tempelritter am Scheiterhaufen) - also
eigentlich in der Kreativität sehr einschränkend war.
Trotzdem schaffte es Roman uns mit einigen Gedankenspielen dazu zu bringen daraus ein völlig anderes Modell zu erschaffen. Und das ist es was Romans Figuren so besonders macht: Er schafft es wie sehr wenige einer Miniatur Leben und eine Geschichte einzuhauchen.
Ich versuche mal praxisnahe zu erklären was mir persönlich am meisten gebracht hat:
Wir
alle kaufen Miniaturen aus dem Bauch heraus weil sie uns auf Anhieb
gefallen oder weil wir eine einzelne zündende Idee haben. Dieses "Feuer"
verlischt aber gelegentlich ziemlich schnell wenn man die Figur dann
zuhause hat und an die Umsetzung denkt und so kommt es dass einige
(hust) dieser Figuren einfach für Jahre auf der Strecke bleiben oder
entweder niemals fertiggestellt oder das ganze einfach keinen Spaß mehr
macht etc.
Roman hat uns (mit meisterhafter Vorbereitung)
beigebracht, dass die Erschaffung einer Figur weit weit vor dem Gedanken
an eine technische Umsetzung beginnt und dass es sich wirklich
auszahlt, wenn man denkt ,dass man bereits eine gute Idee hat, nochmal
zur Ruhe zu kommt, die Gedanken fließen lässt, vielleicht Konzepte
wieder verwirft und noch einige andere Ideen zur Figur sammelt bis man
wirklich zufrieden mit seinem Plan ist.
Und das ist meiner
Meinung nach der Schlüssel für langfristige Motivation: ein sehr
detailliertes und klares Ziel vor Augen zu haben und genau das erreicht
man damit. Natürlich wird nicht jede Figur in Zukunft ein krasser Umbau
werden, aber ich persönlich bin ein eher ungeduldiger Maler der rasch
zu schnellen aber unsauberen Techniken greift um das Projekt fertig zu
stellen und genau das werde ich in Zukunft (eher ;) ) vermeiden weil ich
eben mein schönes klar definiertes Ziel erreichen will, auch wenn es
länger dauert. Alles in allem hat das Coaching wieder dazu beigetragen,
dass ich Miniaturen und das Malen mit noch mehr Liebe und Begeisterung
sehe :)"
- Paul
We continued painting on day two, too.
Pushing further and further. As a teacher I really enjoyed the progress my students made in the end. If you look at this you might now think it was started with just color on their fingers.
"Hey happy painters!
After some weeks of hard work I have time to give you some review of my private coaching with Roman Lappat. Everything starts with an idea.... Two very close painting friends and I were thinking about how to improve our art aspect of hobby "miniature painting".
We had a great technical workshop with Kirill Kanaev recently in Vienna and now the next step had to be Roman @ the massive voodoo home base.
So we talked with Roman about a (how we call it now) master class in creativity.
The only things we knew befor the workshop was the date, time and the Pegaso bust we will paint. Risky business not to know what's planned, but we took our car and drove about six hours to Augsburg.
1. day, Roman welcomes us like we are very good friends, it was a pleasure to meet him in the studio. After a little welcome small talk and coffee we still don't know what come next.
We get a white board and markers to write on it. So we start thinking about the topic, What is creativity? What is it for us and in general...
Next step: take the historical concept of the bust and kick all that ideas away :D first time we are out of our comfort zone....
We make our own concept at a bust which has a historical background.
After rebuild the bust and prepare it for painting Roman: we don't use our brush the next hours. So we only have fingers and a Little sponge. Next time he kicked us hard out of our comfort zone.
After we sketches our busts, he kicked us out again.... now we shuffle all busts and paint on another bust. We did that and tell us our ideas of the bust.
It worked perfectly and the bust start to look very .... creative ;)
After sketching the busts we are allowed to work on with our brushes and are shocked how well this concept work.
So what he did to us is, he kicked our heads out of a very classic method of painting and showed us a way of getting FREE.
Free in painting techniques, free in thinking about concepts and also have fun with difficult projects.
To short that article down, the busts look amazing and never expected that.
So Roman is a perfect teacher in workshops and also a perfect private coach.
Inspiring person...
So for everyone who's able to have one of this private coachings, you get an amazing time.
Thank you to my friends to be part of this trip. "
After some weeks of hard work I have time to give you some review of my private coaching with Roman Lappat. Everything starts with an idea.... Two very close painting friends and I were thinking about how to improve our art aspect of hobby "miniature painting".
We had a great technical workshop with Kirill Kanaev recently in Vienna and now the next step had to be Roman @ the massive voodoo home base.
So we talked with Roman about a (how we call it now) master class in creativity.
The only things we knew befor the workshop was the date, time and the Pegaso bust we will paint. Risky business not to know what's planned, but we took our car and drove about six hours to Augsburg.
1. day, Roman welcomes us like we are very good friends, it was a pleasure to meet him in the studio. After a little welcome small talk and coffee we still don't know what come next.
We get a white board and markers to write on it. So we start thinking about the topic, What is creativity? What is it for us and in general...
Next step: take the historical concept of the bust and kick all that ideas away :D first time we are out of our comfort zone....
We make our own concept at a bust which has a historical background.
After rebuild the bust and prepare it for painting Roman: we don't use our brush the next hours. So we only have fingers and a Little sponge. Next time he kicked us hard out of our comfort zone.
After we sketches our busts, he kicked us out again.... now we shuffle all busts and paint on another bust. We did that and tell us our ideas of the bust.
It worked perfectly and the bust start to look very .... creative ;)
After sketching the busts we are allowed to work on with our brushes and are shocked how well this concept work.
So what he did to us is, he kicked our heads out of a very classic method of painting and showed us a way of getting FREE.
Free in painting techniques, free in thinking about concepts and also have fun with difficult projects.
To short that article down, the busts look amazing and never expected that.
So Roman is a perfect teacher in workshops and also a perfect private coach.
Inspiring person...
So for everyone who's able to have one of this private coachings, you get an amazing time.
Thank you to my friends to be part of this trip. "
- Marcus
I really want to thank the three of you for your kind words on this coaching, also for taking the time to write them down and the great time we shared together! Really appreciated.
Keep on happy painting and stay creative ;)
I really want to thank the three of you for your kind words on this coaching, also for taking the time to write them down and the great time we shared together! Really appreciated.
Keep on happy painting and stay creative ;)
Roman
Feel free to contact me for your private coaching!
Right now I am fully booked with two day MV private coachings until the end of September 2017. All requests from now on will be planned up for autumn 2017. Right now I can not give you any specific dates yet, as I the second half of 2017 will be planned around weekend seminars and these will be settled in June/July.
Feel free to contact me for your private coaching!
Right now I am fully booked with two day MV private coachings until the end of September 2017. All requests from now on will be planned up for autumn 2017. Right now I can not give you any specific dates yet, as I the second half of 2017 will be planned around weekend seminars and these will be settled in June/July.
Posts
Fantastic workshop, I love all the concepts but the gulliver's travel is genius!
At least for me as (just) a reader, this review was very inspiring. It seems that teaching creavitiy needs a creative coaching concept!
Roman: Congrats to this truely genius teaching method ;)
Students: Congrats to the excellent results.
All in all, I can simply leave a "wow" here. Really cool stuff is coming out of the jungle...
Regards,
Cornel
My first thought was "Blasphemy! How could you dare to not to paint Jaques de Molay as himself!" Half a second later: "Okay, Odysseus and the sirens would be great".
:-D
So you got me out of my comfort zone as well.
Oh WOW, the old man tied up almost looks real. This is really blog and post. I will surely be following up with you for more. So keep it great !
Such a nice idea. I love seeing the same model painted/converted differently side by side