Art for Non-majors individual projects

What follows is a selection of student work from exercises that focus on familiarizing students with the rudimentary techniques of representational drawing and painting. The non-majors art courses are offered every semester and are electives that offer credit for advancing one's skill in drawing or painting. I decided to focus on the basics of drawing and when it came to painting I stressed more of the creative freedom of the medium.

Drawing examples

Most of the projects are focused on acquiring representational skills, or bending mark making around representational renderings. This curriculum is something I would like to expand and re-imagine for a more experimental approach to drawing, painting, and art making. As it was I felt like it offered students at various skill levels the chance to try to regain some control of their art making abilities, and many expressed interest in that space. A handful wanted to explore more experimental methods, but again, it was difficult to encourage this and provide them with enough support to feel like they could take risks given the classes more traditional climate. A culture of learning where advanced students and beginner students can flourish in opposite directions is difficult to provide and this was a great learning opportunity for me.

Painting examples

I had initially thought that painting would offer students chance to be more creative since it offers a similar amount of flexibility as drawing. In setting up the painting to have more creative freedom, students surprised me and did not quite take advantage of it which I would change for next time. I now have an understanding of the limited range with which students continue to address problems in painting, most of the students approached the projects as exercises. Their technical skills in painting are also difficult to build up, painting does have its own skill set that takes quite a while to acquire. These lessons do help them acquire skills, but they fail in encouraging their creativity. I want to continue to find ways to access this part of my students.

Final project

For the final project I required that students make and explain an original work of art. I felt that students would need to have more creative exercises, more writing and speaking, and lot more forceful prompts to step outside of their comfort zone. This project also gave me a sense of students potential to surprise me, many finally did step out of their comfort zones. I want to explore the actual potential of students and this requires years of experience teaching, this class was a fantastic opportunity to try some things out and I look forward to teaching more students at this level.