Missed a recap for the Spring 2018 semester (hey - only three months behind the one that was supposed to bookend this one), and after last year's hiatus from teaching Summer Sessions, it seems there is a void of posts relating to one of the more significant background activities that occupies my time. Or at least these sorts of activities force me to put on pants, maybe shave, and force me out of the cabin to interact with other people. Fall 2017 I think was the last one of these "recaps" for drawing, and aside from swapping things around and dropping a few activities due to a truncated schedule, the basic trajectory of the course stayed the same.
(More below the fold)
Of course, the one constant thing that changes is the folks who are put into the mix. The individuals are all uniquely different, which in turn changes the dynamics of the group, and in so doing influences the output and quality of work produced.
One thing notably different was the number of folks enrolled in the class: six (second-ever lowest for me) and the gender ratio, which is almost always overwhelmingly female, but for some reason was all male but for the exception of one retired woman taking the class for fun (I know... weird, right?).
There was also a disturbing new development in the continually swirling-down-the-drain educational scene here, a mandate that enrollment figures meet a minimum threshold of students registered for each class a month before the official first day of the semester. The logistics of this are sure to effectively doom the Art Department, which is in turn housed within the College of Liberal Arts. At least they don't even try to bully me personally anymore into renegotiating a contract that is half the normal rate of pay. Though they routinely offer this ultimatum to other adjuncts, which shows where nontenured faculty fall along the spectrum (even if we comprise the majority of teaching positions). I've been vocal about rejecting those terms, and have summarily dropped the course rather than become a scab in the traditional sense. I maintain that logically follows if overall numbers are down for an entire department, college and/or university, both staff and especially administration ought to then also take a 50% paycut, right?
Not to mention the physicality of real estate, as in there's only twenty-two drawing tables and chairs in the studio itself. When we switch to drawing on easels, there is only seventeen, so someone's gonna be SOL. The maximum enrollment is cut off at eighteen, with waitlisted folks after that. Student-to-teacher ratio is correlated with success and satisfaction, though it does pressure folks who seek anonymity in numbers - it's hard to skip when there's a glaring, empty seat in the room, and just as obvious (plus more disruptive + disrespectful) walking in late.
Some people inevitably fall by the wayside, soon as it gradually dawns on slackers that the "boot-camp" moniker is, in fact, lived up to. Or another, better way to phrase it would be "separating the wheat from the chaff."
Another aspect worth noting was the unexpected pleasure of a couple exceptionally verbose individuals whose insightful commentary and feedback really made critiques an unusually rare treat - always a bonus.
Snapshots culled from student sketchbooks for the first critique piece, the Interior of a Room (aka linear perspective.)
Reference sketches from the students sketchbooks for the second critique assignment, "Exterior." One of the cunning and manipulative byproducts of incessant drilling them with the habit of doing all of these sketches is that it incidentally adds to the overall total amount of drawings that they will do over the course of the semester, thereby increasing their individual skill, both in rendering and observation. Sneaky bastard, ain't I?
Also, this is the filler text I often use when the blog post is in draft form, after uploading all of the images but haven't yet come up with any pithy annotations to accompany the pictures. herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp herp derp
Then it's on to the "Dead Hairy Animals" portion of the course where students are introduced to the world of pen + ink, and have to illustrate two spot pieces based on reference sketches harvested while out & about.
Our traveling posse gets to explore many interesting venues in + around town, like the UAF Museum, Creamer's Field, Morris Thompson Center, Fish & Game, even box stores out of desperation if it's an evening class. As artists we must learn to creatively subsist on the visual resources available in our environment.
Then it's the "Vignette": three page minimum pen + ink critique piece, also known as the image & text assignment, and also now referred to as "comics poetry." These days I hand out the criteria sheet full of verbosity and academic terminology, have them cross everything out and simply write in "comic" instead.
Then there was the time-tesed crowd favorite caricature execise as a way to segue into figure drawing. Here's backlinks to the first two posts about this exercise way back in 2009, and a later one from 2014.
As always, another of my own personal favorites as far as grand summations go, is the "Observation, Experience & Imagination" assignments. Students have 20-minutes to sketch the figure, in a centralized area of the 18x24" drawing paper (either horizontal or vertical orientation). This leaves a lot of room so as to incorporate the next two phases of the piece, and also lightly penciled because they will have an opportunity to switch to another medium and erase thier initial, preliminary marks.
Next 20-minutes is spent penciling in from memory one of the environments that we had previously drawn during the semester (ex: hallways, bowling alley, library stacks, Wood Center, symphony hall, an interior or exterior etc.). Over the next 20-mintes they incorporate three different elements directly from their sketchbooks to emphasize foreground, midground and background depth in the picture plane. This is more often than not where things can get potentially a little weird.
Lastly they will have approximately half an hour or so (total of an hour and a half for this assignment) to unify the composition by either tying it together with values and/or using charcoal, marker, wash and reworking the drawing. Then we spin the easels around 180° so they all face the middle of the room, and we have a mini-art show with bonus discussion and profound insights from the instructor about this powerful meta-lesson that they will never, ever forget. Here's a couple of the first posts about this particular exercise, and one of the more recent ones.
One of my personal, customized exercises I've come up with over the years is the "Art Department Studio Study Remix" in-class assignment. This is where we take a tour of the art department and explore all of the other varied disciplines available, for example metalsmithing, ceramics, painting, etc. It's also a great opportunity to talk about the relative requirements for majoring + minoring, plus the BA and BFA degrees. After the intro the students then go back to any of the rooms that piqued their individual interest, and on three separate sheets in their sketchbooks, draw - using pencil - three reference images for a foreground, midground and background element. This should take approximately ten minutes each, so a half-hour overall for this phase (the walkabout takes about another half-hour). After this we meet back up in the drawing studio, and they are tasked with reassembling these disparate elements into a unified composition on an 18x24" sheet of good paper using charcoal. The resulting piece ought to be a good example of an illustration, one that speaks to the unique attributes of each respective major or medium.
“Well, it is a VISUAL art class” Though I really do try and not take my work home with me from the office, thought I’d transfer + update some of the show & tells for just my Beginning Drawing class… hadn’t realized over the years exactly how many total images I now show over the course of a single semester (not counting original works and demos).
Now all this is second only to the number of songs that they have to listen to.. like, for example, this amazing track by the Techno Marching Band known as Meute.
On a meta-note here, I remember way back when this blog first started I felt like I had to add some sort of veneer of respectability or grafted gravitas to my posts by adding quotes from famous artists. Now it feels somewhat stretched thin again... scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel when it comes to generating material for my own writing. Now, to be sure, wasting time isn't a major concern of mine - hell, I am a damn artist after all - but still I could definitely divert some more attention + energy to tasks at hand. While this blog doesn't siphon all that much away, but still, that attitude in itself is a red flag: taking the time to take things seriously even if it's in the craftwork alone will merit equal attention from others (one of the criteria I constantly harp on in the classroom).
All of this is to say I'm just about done with posting about the educational side of things. So this'll be one of the last recaps, and an initial heads-up that the entire blog is winding down: it's approaching the ten-year anniversary - and two-thousandth post - mark, which is as good a place as any to insert a bookmark and close the covers.
Still a few loose ends to tie up... drafts that have been languishing in limbo etc. and there will of course always be a steady stream of funnies, but those can be posted on other platforms that are more conducive to stand-alone images sans protracted commentary. But going off the number of hyperlinks peppered throughout this one post, I think it's safe to say I'm pretty close to repeating myself - though there's always an abundance of material to draw from when one is exposed to the amount of inspiration on display in any classroom.
No comments:
Post a Comment