Bad art lesson bin. Room 101. Art lessons to banish.

[TessaW]

My art 102 class in college was definitely geared toward contemporary/conceptual art rather than technical skills and was a requirement to take more advanced art classes like figure drawing, etc. I actually thought it was a fun, thoughtful class- but looking back I'm not sure if it was worth the money for what I actually wanted to learn. For one lesson we had to take an everyday item and make it out of an unexpected material to invoke the viewer to sort of visualize what it might feel like to interact with the object. One example of a famous art work that does this is a tea cup covered in fur. The viewer in their mind feels what it must be like to feel fur against their lips. What I turned in was a jock strap and g-string made out of sandpaper. Lol.

[robgale]

Oh college art classes. Some of them were fun, but yeah... probably not worth the money. I don't even remember what the assignment was, but there was one piece I did in art 101 or something like that where I moved my entire bedroom (freshman dorms at the time) into a parking space in the parking lot for a couple of hours. Yeah... At least it got better after that.

[peteolczyk]

@robgale that’s brilliant. Did you sit around and lounge about there for a while, just to play the part and make it real.

[peteolczyk]

@TessaW ouuuuch. Just The thought of it Hurts .
I vaguely remember a lesson like that. I definitely remember the furry cup.
I also remember someone transforming a toilet into a Mock paper mache sort of fruit machine.

[chrisaakins]

This thread is reminding me of what I used to say in college:

"Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, teach college."

[Heather Boyd]

I have to say two:

the perspective final work where you don’t draw an environment with what you learn in one or two point perspective but just a large version of squares and rectangles in that perspective. Nothing of apply this to your drawing just show in large scale you can.

I got this in both high school and college, draw what you see. I see a tree. Draw that. But how. Look at it and draw it. But how.......and then I’d asked myself why I paid for my own tools and paid to sit in class and have the teacher say draw what you see. I could have failed at that at home $7000+ richer or of How To Draw Everything class was back then been so far ahead. Even if they had said something like look at the shapes and forms, from larger shapes to smaller details. But no just draw what you see. I see a tree!!!

My vent is complete!

[peteolczyk]

@chrisaakins I’ve heard that saying too. There are some really memorable art teachers out there too. My first real art teacher, Mr Mills was an amazingly compassionate man. He had to be to have the patience to teach us lot. He was also great at pen ink work, like you Chris. We had whole lessons on cross hatching, mark making and the nuts and bolts of perspective.
He also really twisted my arm into having a go at painting too.
No cotton wool with him. It was mostly buildings, factories and boats in pen.

[peteolczyk]

@Heather-Boyd that sounds like they didn’t have any useful advice at all. You wouldn’t get away with teaching any other subject like that.
How do I drive this car?
Just drive to where you want to go

[robgale]

@peteolczyk Haha. Yeah. I had all my stuff out there! So I wasn't about to just leave it!

[NessIllustration]

Haha you guys' stories are wild!! Love it!

I had the same experience as @Heather-Boyd when I studied Visual Arts. I'd go to class and the teacher would say "Today, we're going to do a painting. Go wild!" The other students loved it, but I always thought to myself "I could have done this at home. I thought I'd learn like... actual techniques and stuff". After 2 years of that, I had enough! I heard there was a Film Animation program in another college in my city, and I applied simply on the basis that I heard it was an incredibly difficult program. The teaching was DAY AND NIGHT. It was focused on teaching us techniques, softwares, principles, and prepare us for work in a studio. Not all teachers and/or programs are created equal, sadly!

[Amanda Bancroft]

@NessIllustration haha I shouldn't read this thread while eating mini chocolate chips, dangerously funny LOL!

I can believe it was college not middle school. My first college art class made me drop my art minor, and SVS brought me back into the artist fold like the lost sheep I was.

[Amanda Bancroft]

My most memorable "bad art lesson" involved one bottom half (legs) of a woman's mannequin upside down in a trash can with a wheel...I don't remember much about that class besides wasting a lot of paper doing speed drawings that we were only given seconds to complete (to capture the sweet lines and spirit of the image or something like that).

That was college. A huge contrast to my middle school art teacher, who was fantastic at critiquing my drawings so they'd improve, helping me really see what I was looking at by pointing out details I missed and explaining important things like sharp pencils and getting darker darks, lighter lights (better value range) and countless other skills she taught me.

[peteolczyk]

@NessIllustration that was a wise move Ness. It’s great that you recognised the value of hard work and found a course that could challenge you.

At your other college, I wonder of maths students had the same deal. “Today you’re going to express yourselves in fractions”

[burvantill]

These are hilarious... and sad.

I got one! You know those metal stools with the laminate wood circle tops that every studio class has? We had to paint the top of the stool. Not actually paint on the stool but recreate, on canvas, the years of paint splatter that was on the stool. We were supposed to copy it as exact as we could. It was supposed to be an abstract image, [face palm]
This was college.

[peteolczyk]

@robgale there must be a photo of this somewhere

[demotlj]

This is a great thread! I'm an amateur and until SVS only took one art class which was so horrible I dropped out after 3 classes. It was an evening watercolor class -- I live in a rural area so I had to drive an hour and a half to get to the weekly class. The first class, the teacher handed out supplies and said, "Paint what you feel." The second class she held up a watercolor how-to book, leafed quickly through the pages pointing out some of the pictures, and summarized the chapter on values in about 2 minutes, and then we went back to painting what we wanted. The third class I asked, "How do you create edges and a sense of line without inking over the pencil?" and she said, "Well, some painters leave a little white space between the shapes." I was pretty new to watercolor but I knew there had to be more to it than that and that's when I quit. SVS is not only extremely good at teaching but I don't have to drive an hour and a half to get there

[Lee White]

These are hilarious! I had quite a few of these assignments in college. The problem with most of these teachers is they don't explain WHY you are doing what you are doing. What problem this particular assignment will help you overcome. They seem like they just want to keep you busy and doing stuff. Unfortunately many people get turned off quickly by that and don't advance in their skill sets. It makes art seem inaccessible and weird.

[eriberart]

These stories are great! I had good classes at university, but my art classes in secondary school were dreadful. It was very much 'do whatever you want' time and we weren't taught anything!

Last year I did a beginner's hobby-course in pottery. Every time I was on the wheel the instructor would come over and tell me I wasn't doing it right. Rather than showing me she would say, "Do it like this," and then proceed to do the WHOLE pot for me. I ended up with some beautiful pots but I would have preferred some ugly pots that I actually made...

[robgale]

@peteolczyk Oh man. I wish I did have photos. It was over 20 years ago though, before digital photography was really a thing, so I'd have to go sifting through some film if I even DID have anything. Hah! How times have changed.

[xin li]

@NessIllustration this is so absurd. I almost think it may have some kind of profound value. Maybe the lesson is that you can literally do anything in the art world, so go and freak out and break the boundaries, and claim your freedom. :smiling_face_with_open_mouth_closed_eyes: