Bad art lesson bin. Room 101. Art lessons to banish.
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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.
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@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”
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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. -
@robgale there must be a photo of this somewhere
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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
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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.
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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...
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@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.
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@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:
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@xin-li That's likely! It was "visual arts" after all, not illustration or animation. A lot of that program was about expression, freedom and experimentation. Which is nice I guess, and maybe even perfectly valid for fine arts/contemporary art, but it was really not what I was looking for haha... One time someone sculpted a face in ground meat. I was dumbfounded the whole time I was there LOL
