Monday, November 30, 2009

preliminary sketches














So I promised you images and as I observed the class today I realized 2 things:
1. my skills from observation are so much better than from photo- so if you see me staring at you its because I am making a visual note
2. I am not ready to say that my idea is set in stone, though I did cut my materials for my first thoughts. This will not be a waste, just need to rethink idea in that material format.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Off and Running

For the past few days I have been trying to figure out what I will be doing to accomplish the task assigned to me. I have come up with several ideas, finally settling on one that I think will satisfy the challenge. I am finding that this challenge has deep in thought about the personalities of my students. I think I am being asked to listen and observe a great deal more than I have already.

How to proceed in the studio has been an interesting dilemma. The question of starting with the hardest or the easiest or somewhere in between has been plaguing me. The decision was to just start. I will have some of my imagery posted soon, as one portrait is almost completed.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

I'm crying MAMA

I realized this morning that regardless of how often I am in the studio working on my work, and how often I give advice to students about technique, there are still things that I would say I am at a loss at. Working in graphite leaves me crying MAMA

Not to fear ASA students I will meet this challenge (this is teacher vs. art afterall)

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Depicting13 personalities (Schizophrenia?) No...

Due: January 4th

  • 13 portraits- 8"x 11" portraits (of the ASA students) -7 of which have to be done by Dec 18th
  • any media is fine but they must best represent the student's form of media (ex. the portrait of E might be a painting/collage/sewn)
  • also must feature how you view the student
  • each student will grade the completed portrait of them

AnTIciPation...killing me

I am sure you know what I am talking about when you know that there is a mountain to climb at the end of the day, your not sure of the size of the headwalls or whether or not you will need to resort to technical assistance, but you know that it will be a rewarding yet exhausting journey. The anticipation of reaching that climb is fresh in your mind until you actually meet the challenge face to face. Well, as I sit here waiting for my students to deliver their final thoughts on what I am going to be assigned I am feeling like I just took on the climb of a lifetime yet scared about how crazy hard this journey to the summit will be.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Resurecting this Blog with an assignment

Today in my Advanced Studio class I got a bit frustrated with both my students, who were idly chatting, and myself, who has been stuck in neutral in the studio for the past few weeks. My students are currently working on this incredibly difficult assignment in which they have to sample master artists in a 2"x 2" format (100 of them) and display them in a manner of their choosing (style samples only, no replications allowed). I was thinking about this assignment and how lucky they are to be given 5 weeks to complete it. If it were given in art school they would have 4 days tops. They are all seniors, all headed to art school too. I see my main responsibility as being one that encourages them to be ready to accept and excel at those types of challenges.

Today was a different story however, the students who were excited last week by this challenge, were seemingly falling apart today with the monotony. I have to keep reminding myself that this was part of the exercise that I wanted them to experience the most, as it encourages perseverance and reinforces discipline. Yet today, I was on edge because the work ethic that has been so strong in this class disolved into a gossippy teen soup. I started to reflect on my own studio practice, especially when one utterence was in reference to that quote "those who can't, teach..." (I often think that this was a cop-out statement that some person originally made out of jealousy eons ago and they obviously knew nothing about good teaching practices). So in a quick instance of thinking on my feet I found myself assigning another assignment to the group. I can hear the groans from the audience as I write this. You are thinking "that's just like a teacher, pile on more work as punishment?" Thier assignment was that they had to come up with an assignment for me to complete. They will review each proposal as a class tomorrow and then vote on it. They will then come up with the criteria, the resources I need to gather information from, and the rubric. They will also give me a due date that I have to present my work by.

I have resurrected this blog so that the process can be followed. So tune in often and wish me luck!