Drapery and observation

I was reading:

http://www.looking-and-seeing.blogspot.com/

on drapery and it brought to mind this response:

An older friend of mine, a former art director of a New York Ad agency, told me that when he was at art school, they had one full four hour class per week just to deal with drapery, its texture, its look, how it folds and shapes. Sergeant was a master at representing cloth in his paintings.
We don’t do that much any more in our art education as if realism were a dirty word. Yet, the observation that is required to represent fabric is as much a challenge to the artist as is figure drawing. It’s a pity that the current style of art education is so heavily weighted on the idea end of art and ignores the observational requirements for artistic growth.

Have a look at Looking-and-seeing.blogspot.com and enjoy the reflections of this fine artist. She’s an inspiration for ideas.