Painting I · Visual Arts (School Of The Arts)
Finish 10 paintings by the end of the semester. That's all.
Weekly homework assignments with the coloraid paper that are suppose to take you 6 hours to complete. He tells you this up front and it's an honest estimate. It will really show if you put in much less, especially if it becomes a habit. But really it's left to your own discretion. Personally, I always used more. There are occasional readings, which we only had time to discuss in class once and the final project. Again I think the final project is worth about 30% of your grade. The only problem I had with it was that throughout the semester Colin continually referred to having a few weeks to go complete it. I assumed the time was going to come from reading week, so when we approached the end of the semester and hadn't actually begun working on it yet, I wasn't overly concerned. However, in the end it was due the last day of class and we had only one week to complete it. That meant whatever we couldn't complete in that class we had to do on our own time during the last week of classes. Again, it wouldn't have been as big a deal as it was if we would have had a little notice, but c'est la vie.
at least two paintings in class every day, and at least 7 hours spent painting 1-3 pieces each week.
weekly painting homework and research on artists, two times I believe we were assigned to go to a museum, weekly crits, one time we painted in the park which was nice final presentation consisting of atleast three paintings and a one page handout on each of our artists (two)
I was really excited to take this class, but I was disappointed. The course was relaxing, but I just don't think I got much out of it. I knew going into it that it was not a technique art class, but I don't think I understood the extent of what that meant. She will come around and say something about your work once or twice in the 4 hour period. You can pretty much do whatever you want as long as you get 10 paintings done by the end of the semester.
So, here's the nutshell: You get to paint a live figure 3 times throughout the semester (or at least that's what happened with us). There's little to no instruction in class and 99% of the homework is done with coloraid paper where you cut out your design from the coloraid and glue it down. There are no grades given throughout the course and Colin never really has a bad word to say about anyone. However, this doesn't mean you're necessarily getting an A. Most ended up in the B+ to A- range. Anyway, that's that. He's not a bad guy, actually he's nice. Really. A little reserved but friendly none the less. One of the few critiques I have for this course is about his teaching, or lack thereof. I was a beginner when it came to painting, drawing and the like and I did fine. I'm actually proud that I was able to do as well as I did, but what I learned about painting I learned through actually doing it and being around others who were as well. Now, Colin is very nice and will encourage you to keep moving through your painting, but generally his comments will sound something like, "I really like the way you____. You should check out (insert name of painter)." While it's great to have another artist find something they like about your work, it doesn't really help you to grow or to learn how to improve. Now I have to say that as far as grading was concerned I think I was just lucky. Abou…
Jon Bogarin expects way too much of his students. He knows what he's talking about, and he really did teach me a lot, but he had us run around to exhibits all over New York that we didn't even get to talk about! He also expects students to be able to spend 7+ hours each week painting, when in class we only spent about 3-4 hours with brushes in our hands. Jon also neglects to paint with his students, or demonstrate techniques himself. He is also fairly critical, and seems a bit arrogant.
Molly is such a sweet heart, she is extremely kind and positive with critiques. I felt as though there could have been more freedom in choosing our topics. However, this is art and even if a general restraint such as "paint on something that is invisible" is given, you still have a lot of freedom. I just sometimes would have liked if we could come into class and paint whatever we wanted. We had to study two artists throughout the semester and for the final presentation present atleast three works (they did not all have to be newly created). I really enjoyed this last assignment not only because of the artists I had, but because it kept me painting continuously over a couple of days. I would have liked less homework and to work on very large canvasses.
Lauren is super sweet and cute, but she has no understanding of the workload she assigns. yes she is nice and accommodating, but she doesn't understand that in order to do the work you have to be dedicating time to go over to the studio, so assigning more than one painting per week is already too much, plus there were ten sketchbook assignments per week, and a reading, and a writing response to the reading. it was just WAY too much work and she didn't listen when we told her so. In addition, she barely gave any critical feedback n the actual work. her style was to let us work independently during class with little to no commentary from her. it was basically come in to class, talk about last weeks assignment for about an hour, then work independently with quiet music n the background for the next five hours. it was not very exciting. as an artist, I was hoping for a more enriching experience in this class but definitely didn't learn much at all.
8 paintings per semester, the studio is open 24/7. You get your own locker and a place to store all your paintings.