Art Classes

[KevinR]

Hey All,

I have a question for those that have taken any kind of art class in a college enviroment. I am developing some Welded Sculpture art classes and need some advice.

What type of class did you prefer?

A very structured class telling you what to produce.
A semi structured class giving you the technical info and assignments with pretty wide variables.
A structured class for technical information but free reign for the art work to be produced.

Any opinions would be very helpful. Thanks.

 

[Alison]

I usually prefer your second option, especially if it is a beginners class. When art is being "graded" per se it's nice to have some assignements with clearly defined criteria (in my opinion). Good luck!

 

[Vmann]

I usually prefer your second option, especially if it is a beginners class. When art is being "graded" per se it's nice to have some assignements with clearly defined criteria (in my opinion). Good luck!

I agree with this. If you give people to much free riegn I've learned as a student you can BS your way through some assignments. Usually my instructors start off with a few assignments with a general direction and end with about 1/3 of the assignments being independantly designed. This way you can see what the student can do and they can see what other students can do for comparision.

Good luck

 

[KevinR]

The second option is what I have been working the classes around, but I have had a few different opinions around here(my school) on this.

I've learned as a student you can BS your way through some assignments.

After a few years running project classes, my BS detector has become pretty tuned.

 

[mygrain]

Kev,

I have a BFA in Fine art and have been taking classes all my life...I will tell you what my professor told me...

"you are in school to learn how to create- you have a life time to be creative."

I'd get as much hands on instruction as humanly possible that way when it comes time for yer masterpiece you'll be prepared to handle just about anything and not have it disturb the muse.

I've had classes where the teacher was breathing down you neck and had his hands in everything and I've also had professors to tell us once how to do something and the walk away. granted I did well in both but I prefered the classes that the professor was watching my every move. I learned alot more in those classes because he was so involved. For example in my painting classes my professor would actually snatch the paint brush from my hands and paint on my canvas and physically show me how paint should be laid on top of other layers...it helped a whole hell of a lot and on the other hand I had many printmaking classes under the same instructor and he would show us how to do a process one time and expected us to follow his instruction to a tee ( and in most cases we had to to get the process to come off as desired)..he never came around to watch what we were doing and simple graded us on critic days. I learned alot there too but I have retained more from the classes that had more hearty instruction.