Which Classrooom is Yours?




The Classroom:

Set up and clean up must be immediate at the start and at the end of class. It is important to the maintenance of a productive workshop. I always use the analogy of a kitchen or their science lab. It is important that we understand that the rules of behaviour are different in a student driven environment where they are "free to move about the room". You end up with procedures. Safety First! Although we have assigned seats - we reserve the right to use them only on special occasions.

Weekly art discussions and participation therein is required � written assignments and other exercises at the instructors� discretion. Students are encouraged to work on their own time and to balance creativity with diligence in the display and exchange of ideas via the Elements of Art and the Principles of Design.

Expectations:

1)All work is to be turned in on time and done to the best of your ability � in an art class � you only cheat yourself from developing a as an artist � and if you do well � you should be able to apply your visual thinking techniques to other aspects of your school and your life.

2)"You are only a painter when you are painting." I'm not sure who said this. It has been accredited to a number of artists...let's say Picasso said this. It means that you are only an artist when you are engaged in the arts. For Visual Artists it means that you are painting and drawing and building all the time. The same idea applies to students in the classroom. What is it they say about "idle hands"? It is best to keep students busy and happy when in class. In the Lower grades in particular, lectures and explanations should be delivered in conjunction with a simple excercise to be done with pencil and paper to materialize the point through their art experience. Once grasped, the concept can be applied individually to the interest of the student. Point is - keep busy - practice makes perfect.

3) All artists work with what they have. In particular places under duress or through genuine lack of art materials there are always possibilities to work with natural tools to illustrate concepts or ideas. Our ancestors did not have the most basic modern tools and fancy art materials. Furthermore, there are myriad ways that the art student can apply the ubiquitous pencil and as many ways to work with paper. If fortunate enough to have access to a fully supported art classroom (including a sink - there are so many art classrooms out there without sinks - so far in my career establishing art programs I have seen five installed) then there will be no limits to the imagination and to your curriculum expecations.


On Drawing:

Drawing is a physical act, very much like writing and not unlike throwing a ball - with practice your skill will improve ) In modern times there are a variety of ways of imaging - more so than at any other time in history - artists can actually draw with photons/light - But no matter the tool - from pen to scalpel it is the artists hand expressed thru drawing that brings imagery to light. All drafting and drawing technology are just implements of for the imagination.

�The machines are a symbol of man's capacity for exerting maximum effort to achieve minimal results�. Rube Goldberg. Walt Disney understood and applied commercial principles learned from the Fleischer Studios and put them towards world domination. The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next? I have forgotten more than my students will ever know and despite the advances in technology, it's still called drawing and painting.








On the Imagination Factory:

I heard Stan Lee say in an interview once that, "Reality will never be able to catch up to Fantasy because, even though many changes have been brought about and there has been alot of progess in science, as soon as reality gets to the level of fantasy, the imagination just takes it up a notch". Then he did this thing with his hands... like one hand higher than the other and then, the lower hand goes up to the higher hand and - POP! - the higher hand just climbs even higher. Just like that! Some people thought we could not eradicate diseases or fly to the moon even. All thought is communicated and expressed through writing. And if drawing and painting are like reading and writing, just imagine if you got this far and you could not read and write!


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Thanks for the drawings Ms. Lenore Tetkowski - Art in Education