FREE online courses on the Art Appreciation
Basics - Is This Art
As a young, wide-eyed college
student, I walked into my first drawing class expecting to learn about pencil
techniques, anatomy or at the very least, why the recommended art paper for the
course cost me $14.34 a sheet. Instead, my classmates and I came face to face
with an energetic drawing instructor with a rather unique teaching method. Our
first assignment? Make marks on paper. It was a simple enough request until she
added the following restrictions… no pencil, pen, ink, chalk, paint or other
material from our art kits could be used.
Dumbfounded and somewhat
terrified, I (along with my peers) sat frozen - convinced that our professor was
probably in need of a leave. Several arguments and many minutes later, one lone
student stood up, threw his paper on the ground and proceeded to cough up a good
amount of saliva. He then bent down, scooped up some dust and dirt from the
cement floor, and carefully smeared the stuff on his spit soaked paper.
Disgusted and confused, I stared
at the event and began contemplating what a career in business might be like.
Looking toward the door, I was somehow not shocked to hear my drawing teacher
say, "Bravo!"
Though I didn't know it at the
time, (how could I?) that one small act changed the way I would forever think
about and view art.
Looking at a saturated mud picture
in drawing 101 didn't make me like realistic portraits or harmonious landscapes
any less... on the contrary. What it did do however, was help me to realize that
fine art is not only paintings or drawings that look "right", nor is it simply
sculptures which are executed in a "correct" manner. It also helped me to see
that problem solving - in this case, creating marks on paper without traditional
drawing tools - is a large part of art making. In other words, when you look at
a work of art, you should never dismiss (or underestimate) the process the
artist went through to get to the final stage...