who else is fed up with art courses?

[stef88]

I think this would be the perfect place for a rant, and also to find out how widespread this is.

Art courses these days don't even teach you the basics of art, I went through a lot of courses because of this, and finally gave up on finding a class that actually taught me anything.

These days you are given a project and told to get on with it.

I just really want to learn anatomy, colour theory, how to use watercolours/oils etc. And I haven't been taught anything :( I've noticed far too many people in art classes don't have any skills, purely because they expect to be taught in class.

I understand there is a need to teach ourselves and learn at home, but isn't real life teaching better than a book, it's easier to learn when you have someone there to ask questions.

There are small adult courses that teach some things, but when you're a student, time and money can be lacking!

[kev ferrara]

I hear you brother. There are some places out there that teach the "real" stuff... but you have to look for them. Many on this site will know some of the "hot spots" for you to study.

But, in terms of your complaint, we are at the tail end of a long pseudo-intellectual de-evolution process in the arts that has resulted in few teachers in academia competent enough to teach you what you want to know. Luckily many hundreds of great books have preserved the heritage you seek to recover.

David Leffel: Painting Secrets from the Masters
Richard Schmid: Alla Prima
John F. A. Taylor: Design and Expression in the Visual Arts
The Famous Artists Course
Bridgman's anatomy books
Bargue drawing course.

etc etc etc.

I once had a 2D design teacher who was the same way, didn't teach anything, assigned projects, acted pretentious. Meanwhile I was busy down in the basement archives of the school library learning all the good stuff... Mucha's lecture notes, composition books, etc... Well, one day I had completed an illustration I was fairly proud of and brought it into class to show this teacher. His response: "So you do good work, so what."

True story.

Best of luck to you.
kev

[Seedling]

Hi Stef. Hope this helps: http://conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1039003&postcount=80

[stef88]

Kev: sister ;) hehe but I forgive you!

Yes I've heard there are some really good courses in America, but from what I've seen of england, it's really lacking, I really hope someone can prove me wrong.

Also I'm checking ebay/amazon for those books now, mucha's notes? that sounds amasing, I love his work!

I feel bad for you with what that teacher said, you know, he was probably jealous that someone younger than him had more talent.

I've had awful experiences too, I also think the more acclaimed the course, the worse it is.

My favourite class was in a supposedly awful college, but the teachers were all really passionate and really cared for the students and tried hard, even if they didn't teach what I wanted to know, it made me enjoy it a lot more! I learnt so much art history that year, mostly by myself, it's odd how genuine people who love what they do affect you, huh :)

Good luck to you too, and thank you!

Seedling: Yes you are so right in all of that. I do try and learn on my own and I'm trying very hard, I will get to where I want to be! but some people just learn much faster through interaction with a teacher and it seems a shame to pay thousands on an art course (getting into debt) to not be taught. It makes me very bitter.

I can't imagine how it was before the internet and art communities, it would be hard to know where to start, with all the books around, and also it's great because you can get many peoples opinions on your work, which is very useful if an art teachers being snobby to a certain style.

The thing I find most laughable is the teachers snobbery to certain styles. It's very weird as the one thing you are meant to be taught in an art education is to see the good points in all styles.

It makes me want to be a teacher just to try and be one of the good ones, unfortunately I'm no good with kids :(

[Seedling]

You don't have to work with kids to be a teacher. ;)

[stef88]

lol must be a sign of getting old, anyone under 21 is a kid to me now.:D

[Rabid]

I considered my basic courses like going to work. It was tirsome, you didn't learn anything helpful in most cases...library work and inner experimentation are what drive todays most successful artists. You think you know the perfect way to draw the human figure, then another teacher gets you for a class and says your doing it wrong. The problem with art is that there is no universal formula that works smoothly for every situation in every person. Thats the price you pay for studying a field that has never really achieved a concrete absolute.

[tn100]

:steph: I know what you mean!

I teach myself everything now. <3

[enrigo]

I had an art teacher in grade 10 that teaches almost all the theory and history side of art. It's just terrible that the teacher were talking about the definition of lines and the proper way to give critics while all the students probably just want to sit down and paint something.

I did one unintentionally crappy finished work and only a few sketch in class that year.

[tomwaits4noman]

I know what you mean, I would suggest using these courses as a stepping stone,
I did animation for three years and if I had to re do it again I would do things differently I got hung on on trying to perfect my animation skills to the point of obsession was left with not much of a portfolio and noticed that the people who got jobs when the course finished were those who used the equipment to do their own projects, went for simple achievable projects...

on the plus side after I left college I taught myself web design and graphic design and learned more in six months than I did in three years, I think if you can learn and get paid for it it has to be a plus.

[Arshes Nei]

I think one thing about an art school is if you treat it like reading ONE book on art, like say anatomy...you'll be limited. Don't be afraid to look for outside sources. I would have loved CA to have existed when I was going to school. It's one of many great resources now.

[Grief]

well i was initially frusterated with my art classes. i rebeled and argued with everything that was being lectured at me. the options of where i wanted to take the direction of my art werent being taught.

i was eventaully told to quit acting like a dick and that maybe if i shut up i'd learn something.

so thats what i did. i took multiple lifedrawing classes, every photography, printmaking, painting, and graphic design class available. i devoured all knowledge of the 2D arts. i dominated color theory. i can talk about formal relations and the esoteric usage of blah blah color with loads of thick art speak for hours.

after five years of spending top-dollar on this education i found CA.org and it was like getting a terrible, wonderful rude awakening into the fact that i suck.

i could have spent all that time i wasted in class pretending to learn by actually MAKING work and learning from experience. what did i get from my lifedrawing classes? jack shit. i wasted every second i was in front of those models because i wasnt grasping a far more basic understanding of the craft of illustration.

now i'm still lingering around the college, and i'm the bitter rude son of a bitch that acts like everyone else is a talentless moron. because shit, thats really what they are. i dont see them on this forum, they have no clue what the competition of skill is out in the world. art classes are worse than deviantart in asspats.

there is only so much you can learn from a book, and until you pick up the pencil the words really have no meaning.

listen to the teachers, but take everythign they say with a grain of salt. put your ego aside and let the rebelious passion burn inside. when you get done with the classes bust ass on art like a man making a jail break. dont cave into the weakness the academic structure feeds you, fight it with every breath you have. if you dont stand for something you'll fall for everything.

(also stealing supplies from the art department is fair game)

[FlameDragon]

I had an "Anatomy for the Artist, Elements of Drawing" course at the Art Students' League, it was ok but I thought they are supposed to teach you? It basically felt like an open drawing session that was an hour longer.

[eskanto]

thats one of the draw backs of going to the art students league. they talk about what those teachers are going to teach you as if they had an actual curriculum when in reality the teacher is hardly in class and you're working on your own. you have to teach yourself. you have to seek out the info on your own.

[dose]

Grief: Ah, yes- illustration programs. A fine addition to this gripe thread. Where did you go to school? IMHO illustration programs are particularly terrible for the most part. They seem to be dominated by out-of-touch professors who have very little understanding of the real market that exists today, and who have developed a style shtick in place of real artistic understanding. When I was at Syracuse, we had a professor senior year in the illustration department who was generally unpopular because he popped the rosy picture that the other professors had painted. He told us all to get out of illustration- literally- which naturally made for some sour grapes seeing as it was senior year. But he had good points- "nice fantasy painting, but they'll probably give the job to Donato, or the guy who can crank out a piece like yours in a day." I was lucky enough to realize this before senior year and worked my ass off as best I could, but it was still a lot of wasted time. When I finally found good teachers a couple years after school, I had about a tenth the time and drive as I did in college.

FlameDragon Ah, yes- The Art Students League. Another fine addition to this thread. The League is good if you can get into the classes that are impossible to get into and manage to stay in them for years- and then you'll probably learn to paint just like the teacher. It's overcrowded, and the attention from teachers is minimal.

I was fortunate to stumble upon an amazing teacher here in NYC who has since retired (unfortunately). The best teachers teach you to be your own best teacher.

[Medelo]

I've had horrible art classes which were pretty much what has been mentioned: teacher repeats some textbook paragraph they got from somewhere, then assigns something, and we're expected to learn something. Of course those teachers were always the desperate artists who couldn't really make it in the industries and so went to teach..... I felt like I was totally wasting my money with such teachers.

Some teachers like one I have now tries his damned hardest to tell me things about 'the industry' when I graduate, although his information is from the 70's and a lot of it doesn't apply nowadays. Classic example of schools being behind the industry...

Sometimes though, you do land on really good ones that make all the money worth.

[Ilaekae]

"lol must be a sign of getting old, anyone under 21 is a kid to me now."

I hate you... :P



Interesting topic. Lemme think about this for a bit...

[Flake]

I can't imagine how it was before the internet and art communities

Exactly like it is now, but more depressing and with far less communication with like minded people. Places like this simply do not exist yet.


If you like, you can simulate the early 90s art school experience for yourself..

-Disconnect your internet and take the battery out of your phone- they don't really work yet. Oh no! library only for that essay, and someone else has had the book you need for a year and they've left the country..
-Block all but the first 5 tv channels from your telly, it is 1994 after all, cable doesn't exist and only the stupidly rich have satellite.
-Turn up only to classes taught by dogmatic post modern muppets who can't actually draw a straight line. (but why would they need to? The straight line is symbolic of oppression or something..)
-Realise you're getting in debt for this nonsense.
-Drop out
-Admire your huge debts

Other highlights of my art school experience..
-Being taught perspective. In an afternoon.
-Cast Drawing- all 3 hours of it.
-Anatomy class = 2 a4 photocopies
-Animation class taught by an architect who has never animated.
-Life drawing class taught by an abstract sculptor who can't draw.

My art school experience was piss poor, your mileage may vary.

If it doesn't, a years tuition pays for a decades worth of materials, books, instructional dvds and a year or two of life classes. Just saying..

[Elwell]

Am I the only person in the universe who had a satisfactory art eduction?

[Jasonwclark]

It's the same in any discipline: shitty teachers abound, so you really have to take charge of your own education if you want it go anywhere. If you're lucky, you'll maybe find one or two professors who'll inspire you and take you task, but they're few and far between, so if you find one, make sure to bleed them for all they're worth. Try to bare in mind that not everyone who gets hired to teach a class has the same qualifications, or motivations for doing so. Someone might be an excellent lecturer on subject A, but gets stuck teaching subject B "workshop" every semester, because everyone needs it for their general ed requirements and its the only class offered.

Some people teach because they enjoy it, others just do it to pay the bills. Then you also have your lazy teachers, your disorganized teachers, teachers who know a lot but have trouble communicating etc. Some are out to make friends rather than pupils, others are just straight Nazis who get off on making people cry. They might switch it up on you too... depending on the class or the particular student. That's why asking other students isn't always the best way to feel someone out (though it can help you to weed away the worst teachers.) To really know whether a particular instructor is going to be worth your time though, you have to talk with them beforehand and do a little research for yourself. Don't place all your faith in the 101 class that lets you sleep in till noon, just because it meshes better with your work schedule... That guy might be with the worst instructor in the entire program, in which case you'll just be miserable anyway.

we had a professor senior year in the illustration department who was generally unpopular because he popped the rosy picture that the other professors had painted. He told us all to get out of illustration- literally

I don't trust anyone who isn't at least a little bit cynical, but taken to the extreme, a disillusioned professor with the gift of gab can be just as dangerous as an out-n-out bad professor. They can pull you over to the darkside real quick like with a silver tongue and clever diatribes against their peers. But you have to be careful not to lose perspective, or pretty soon you might find yourself spending more time complaining about the way things are taught generally, than you do actually working... which can hurt you in the long run. Still, I'll take a bitter old-timer with a good sense of humor, over someone who's just there to publish papers, do research, and chase grants.

Am I the only person in the universe who had a satisfactory art eduction?

If you're a good student and find the right teacher, then you should be able to get a good education pretty much anywhere. A few bad experiences can turn someone off for life though, which is why intro classes are so important.

[enrigo]

Am I the only person in the universe who had a satisfactory art eduction?

You must have came from a tangent universe :mod:
I'm starting to feel anxious about how my education are going to turn out.

[Hyskoa]

I'm now taught by one guy who thinks that my prowess lies not in learning in how paint better.. to actually be able to paint better, but maybe.. I dunno, use color pencils? Or have I tried using second hand paper with some print on it?
While the other one goes, this I like, this I don't. This too aaaaaaaand this one I'd get rid off.

My ability to ignore stupidity is only so much people. I'm only one man.

I have to admit, there have been ocassions where I just grinned when he was explaining things to me that I was imagening choking them slowly to death while grinning and nodding slowly as he tried to explain for the 3rd time how the different paper and the color pencils would've worked better.

Alllll the way through the conversation. .. That was a good day.
A very good day.

[Hai]

Am I the only person in the universe who had a satisfactory art eduction?
I think some people are bitter because they can't, or have never realized just what they got out of their education. We tend to focus on the bad sides and ignore the good ones.

And on that note; hearing so many descriptions of bad teachers makes me curious. What makes a good teacher? Whenever someone mentioned a good teacher in this thread, they never said why they were good. So, what is it that makes a teacher a good teacher, and do you have examples of such teachers from your education?

[Forecast]

I have one more thing to add to the fray about "bad teachers"

And that is: "Bitter teachers" (found mostly in highschool)

They favor certain students, they sugarcoat work, they talk behind the student's back, and they have no respect for you as an artist because your work might not be their "taste". They'll either force you to change or ignore you and give you an A just because they're a bunch of lazy f*cks who don't care about their job and students and just want to get to the end of the day

What scares me most is the gossiping -- once my friend and I were in the film room late afterschool (lights off, door open, they didn't know we were in there) and heard a bunch of the art teachers trashing one of the students, and several of the other student's work

You can tell when they hate something. They just won't say it.

[CCThrom]

Actually Elwell, I'm with ya...

Somehow managed to carve a decent art education out of a college NOT known for it... But I found the right professors, and that makes the difference. I also took the time to study art history, which may not help much for technique but for knowledge and ideas it's great.

Which is not to say I didn't run into a lot of the same crap, and it pissed me off too... but you learn to put it aside. Who was it that said, "Take what's good. Leave behind what's bad."? Bruce Lee I think.

[woodbert]

As an Art Teacher (High School) I have to teach a variety of students. 90% of them have no interest in art and took it only because they thought it would be an easy A (bad thought btw, at least in my room) and because they are now required by state law to succesfully pass a year of arts education(NJ).
I also have a very outdated district curriculum that I need to at least look at even though I follow the state curriculum much more closely. It's by far a stronger guide. The reason I say this is, teachers have to use these frameworks to create many of their lessons and unfortunately these curriculums aren't completely crafted by artists or art teachers. It's just one of the many flaws in the system.
I tell my students who say they want to work in the arts or wish they could draw as well as I can a couple of things:
They need to find a strong Art School, not just the local Art Institute or college with an Art Program because those usually aren't good enough. Research is important. If you're going to spend thousands of dollars than make sure it's on something good. I give suggestions and help with research but really the decision is theirs.
More importantly I make sure that they are aware that it is naive to assume an art school has all the answers on art. Art is always changing and you need to constantly work on your own as well, study, practice and look at a variety of work on your own.
There will always be narrow minded professors who only like something that you may not, but keep an open mind and study on your own.

[Ilaekae]

I had an extremely unusual experience with art school. I heard through a friend when I was in high school that a new school was starting in downtown Pittsburgh, so I went and applied for entrance to some Saturday life classes and some evening classes at first, and became a full-time student the day I left high school. The school was put together on a shoestring, and was on the top floor of an old office building. The elevator didn't even go that far, so we had to get off and walk up the final set of stairs.

The students were a motley crew of people from about 16 to 35 (maybe 35 total students), and though we had a formal structure of classes, nobody paid much attention to it. A lot of inter-student critting and commenting went on the entire time, and sometimes, it was a real circus. We even had instances of revolting against an assignment and having a sit-in until the instructor laughingly agreed to doing things another way. The models for our life classes loved the place because we all treated them with respect as peers and professionals, and they would often float through the classes eating a sandwich stark nekkid asking questions and looking at everyone's work. We almost got arrested when one of our models, an extremely attractive young girl named Honey, got off the pose stand and joined a bunch of us for the trip downstairs for a greasy spoon burger...without remembering to dress first.

I should mention that this was the mid sixties, I guess...

The instructors were unusual, to say the least. They were all working professionals from different fields, and taught what they did for a living, all by the seat of their pants. We had a Hungarian cartoonist who had literally jumped the Berlin Wall and been shot doing it, who knew so little English that we all made it our goal to teach him English 10 words at a time each day. The heads of five major Pittsburgh ad agencies were teaching some of the ad courses, and I mean these guys were THE top, like CEOs and Presidents. We had working art directors and designers like Don Punchatz, Lester Fried, and Al Kiefer, and some real loony toons. I learned production art from a production specialist who was an alcoholic and sometimes showed up without his pants or shoes, so we all took care of him with a special bag of clothes and pre-made coffee so he wouldn't get fired. The man was incredible. He shook so much he couldn't write his name, but when he laid a pad on his lap and picked up a #1 brush, he could draw a perfect 10" square on the pad that was so even and perfect that people would swear it was done with a technical pen.

We learned to work with materials that we found, stole or created because we didn't have a lot of money, and at one point, the darkroom had to be closed for a few days because somebody stripped the wall board off the studs for their painting class. We used to borrow the Director and teachers' cars and go cruising lumber yards and construction sites for scrap stuff that could be used in classes, allowing us to spend what money we had for high-grade art supplies.

Our fine arts classes were taught by people like Abe Weiner, the great surrealist painter, and guys from Europe who participated in the early stages of the abstract expressionist and color field movements, as well as classically-trained renaissance types. Arnold Varga was one of our illustration teachers. Many of our classes were held outside in the park and various places around Pittsburgh because we hated to work inside when the weather was nice, so the entire city went nuts when we'd all decide to plop ourselves down in the Courthouse or some large department store to do figure studies.

It was a tiny piece of chaotic genius that came into being when I needed it most, and sadly disappeared within a few years because as it grew, the regulations, restrictions and formatted classes required by a larger student body caused it to lose the thing that made it great. It graduated maybe 200 students before it began to change, and nearly 90% became professional designers, art directors, illustrators and photographers, and most of those had their own business within five years.

Did I learn anything? Yeah. I learned how to adapt, think, and plan for anything. I learned that creativity and learned skills made a nice combination, and that the giants of the art world were just people like me who muddled their way threw trying to not look like fools. I learned to stand up and not be afraid of anything...

[stef88]

Ilaekae: that sounds pretty fun. IT's a great point that the bigger the class, the worse it becomes :( Rules and regulations seem to destroy things :(

Hai!^^ : I'm bitter because the teachers I've had haven't done anything. Hell one locked himself in his room all lesson and smoked pot. This was in a supposedly good college..

But I did mention before, even if the teachers don't teach what I'd like to learn, the ones in my last college had a lot of passion and I really appreciated that.

My lifedrawing guy would read from artists book, all through it, and he was getting into it a lot bless him :) He also took the time to give us suggestions on our work, and we had a crit afterwards. it was amasing :)

Flake: I remember having only 5 channels, but not much else, I got the internet when I was 15 but it hadn't really found it's way yet at that time.

dose: I'm studying illustration......

[dose]

And on that note; hearing so many descriptions of bad teachers makes me curious. What makes a good teacher? Whenever someone mentioned a good teacher in this thread, they never said why they were good. So, what is it that makes a teacher a good teacher, and do you have examples of such teachers from your education?

I mentioned before that the best teachers are the ones who teach you to be your own best teacher. I was lucky enough to find here one in NYC after college, though unfortunately at a time in my life that I couldn't totally dedicate to my art study.

He had the most passion about art I've ever encountered personally, and the knowledge to back it up. He was really tough and it was a little bit "my way or the highway", but mainly because we were all trying to skip over the fundamentals. We all wanted to jump to the nice highlight in the eye, but he kept pushing us back to composition, mass, and proportion- which we all had very little clue about. So over and over we'd start shading things really nice and putting in the eyelashes and he would come in and erase it all except the major masses, much to our exasperation. As a result, I got over my preciousness about my art pretty quickly, though not without some pain. He cared very little about making things pretty and shiny and impressive, and always pushed towards getting the fundamentals down solidly. Whenever he was really hard on us- which was most of the time- he reminded us that it was because he wouldn't always be around to be hard on us (he's in his 80s), and we needed to learn to be that hard on ourselves.

He certainly had his faults as a teacher, but I think they were largely due to cultural differences between him and us (he was born and trained in Russia) combined with the fact that he was exceedingly stubborn. The cultural differences were difficult because he had little understanding of how people expect to be taught here in the US- we like things divided up into nice, digestible pieces that are partially chewed up and placed in our mouths. I got the sense that in the academy in Russia they just kept giving you the whole ball of iron over and over, and it was up to you to figure out how to swallow it- because you want it that badly. That's certainly how he taught, which in retrospect was not a bad thing at all. However he was never able to realize the fundamental misalignment between student and teacher expectations here and compensate for that in any way. His stubbornness bore out in his determination to teach us no matter how thick our skulls were or how lazy we were feeling. It's hard to complain about being tired to an 80-year-old man with knee problems who had painted all day and then dragged himself up a flight of stairs to teach you. But of course the stubborness was the cause of endless frustration as well- for us and for him.

None of us could quite live up to his expectations of how dedicated we should be to our study of art. It was a part-time night school and he felt that was inadequate to really learn art- which I agree with. He constantly wrestled with the prevailing attitude in the US that art is a hobby and is less important than making money. There was never any practical consideration of what we would do with our art or how we would make a living. The last day of a pose would come up and we'd all try to pretty it up quickly at the end- I think from the vague notion that we could maybe sell it or something. He of course had little to no interest in this, and wouldn't hesitate to erase our precious work even on the last day of a pose (besides, our efforts to pretty things up usually ruined the piece). I think his age contributed to this attitude- pack in as much teaching as he possibly can in the time that he has. He also came from a world where artists were supported and respected and so had never had to worry about that, and was old enough by the time he was teaching us that he really only cared about passing on what he knew.

He retired because he couldn't find really serious students- at least no one up to his standards. He wanted students who would study every day for 5-6 years. A few people showed up purporting to be really serious, but he scared them off pretty quickly since the 2 or 3 of them who showed up had clearly come to NYC to learn how to paint like Jacob Collins and heard through the grapevine that there was something classical going down at my school. He had little to no interest in the impressive results of the "classical realism" schools and ateliers that are popping up everywhere, and the prospective "serious" students had little real understanding of what classical art was (they thought it just meant painting very realistically), so they never stuck around for any actual classes.

From him, I learned to be endlessly but realistically tough on myself, and that really I can't expect anyone to teach me but myself. Someone can stand behind you and push with all their might, but if you don't use your own head and look where you're going and what you're doing you won't get very far. And I learned countless technical things about the process of making art that he never spelled out directly, that are only becoming slowly apparent as I study hard on my own. I think that's another sign of a great teacher- one that you keep learning from even after you're no longer studying with them directly.

The school is still around in NYC, but floundering for a number of reasons- I think the main ones being location (it's out in Queens) and inability to pull students away from the established art institutions in NYC. Also, most people who end up there are unprepared for some of the cultural differences and expectations- all the teachers were trained in the Soviet academies and many of them don't speak English very well. I'd still recommend the school as there are some phenomenal teachers- especially for sculpture- but it's rarely what anybody who is not a native Russian speaker expects. But it's a real shame my teacher retired and was never able to find students willing and able to match his intensity.

I'm lucky enough to still be in contact with him. I'm currently working on a website for him, but I think that's half an excuse for him to look at my sketchbook and talk about art.

[kev ferrara]

Dose... we have ways of making you talk!! (said with german accent)

Translation: NAME PLEASE! :)

[dose]

The school's name is Bridgeview School of Fine Arts- it's located in Long Island City, Queens. The teacher's name is Samuel Kudish. You can see some of his academic and pre-academy work at their website:

http://academicart.com/kudish.htm

Unfortunately the color in the JPEGs are pretty off, and there's very few of his paintings.

The website I'm working on is for his current stuff, which is much more abstract and I'm guessing will be pretty uninteresting to the vast majority of CA.org.

[deepbluehue]

I agree with Dose that the best teachers teach you to be your own best teacher.

A good teacher will challenge you and not let you get comfortable with your skill level. They'll push you to try things you don't think you can do and criticize it with the hopes that you'll try harder. They'll hound you over your weaknesses and encourage you to persevere. I still hear my teacher talking to me and I haven't been to his classes in 2 years!

[FlameDragon]

I agree with Dose that the best teachers teach you to be your own best teacher.

A good teacher will challenge you and not let you get comfortable with your skill level. They'll push you to try things you don't think you can do and criticize it with the hopes that you'll try harder. They'll hound you over your weaknesses and encourage you to persevere. I still hear my teacher talking to me and I haven't been to his classes in 2 years!

I believe that too. My life drawings weren't that great but the instructors still would say "good" or merely point out an anatomical mistake. I know they aren't there to provide all the tools for improving for us, but I was hoping they would at least tell me what things I need to work on and what I can do to improve.

[Ian Mack]

I was talking to a friend about this today and thought I'd throw in what we discussed.

A) He goes to a highly regimented school where everything you do is WRONG. That is simply the way they teach. It teaches observation and accuracy more than anything so everything you do there is simply an exercise. They pile on the direction and he has no time for a life outside of school. That's alright however since all he does is exercise drawing. He has no need to bring in his thoughts and feelings.

B) I go to a school where if you want to learn, you have to use the library. You have to talk to the teachers after the class(turns out they appreciate this alot!). There is no direction, you figure it out for yourself which suits me just fine. The upside is you get to have a life because you turn around and bring those experience into your art projects. The downside is that I don't draw as much as I should.

[enrigo]

I was talking to a friend about this today and thought I'd throw in what we discussed.

A) He goes to a highly regimented school where everything you do is WRONG. That is simply the way they teach. It teaches observation and accuracy more than anything so everything you do there is simply an exercise. They pile on the direction and he has no time for a life outside of school. That's alright however since all he does is exercise drawing. He has no need to bring in his thoughts and feelings.

B) I go to a school where if you want to learn, you have to use the library. You have to talk to the teachers after the class(turns out they appreciate this alot!). There is no direction, you figure it out for yourself which suits me just fine. The upside is you get to have a life because you turn around and bring those experience into your art projects. The downside is that I don't draw as much as I should.

That will teach you to keep things in moderation. :P
Although option B sounds better, or maybe it's just my lazy nature.

[Maxine Schacker]

If you want to play the violin - seriously, not as an avocation- dedication and hard work are required, as well as passion and vision. I think it's the same for everything. Creativity is freed by real learning, not inhibited. In art you want to learn the language so you can make the choices that will best express your vision. You don't simply want to learn someone else's solutions.

The problem with a lot of North American students is that they don't want to take the time to really learn the language. They don't understand that the best artists don't label themselves artists - they have humility and are exploring and learning for their entire lives. Why teach if students don't have the passion, the obsession, that's required? Happily, over time we have found more and more students who really appreciate what we're offering. Without them it wouldn't be worth it...because of them, I find the energy to give my best efforts. There is as much responsibility in being a student as there is in being a teacher!

[Naklajat]

I guess I've been pretty lucky thus far in my education, I'm taking a video game development course at community college. I've learned a whole lot from Al Nelson, the guy teaching several of the art and illustration classes. He doesn't go much into style or materials or any of that, but teaches concepts like designing thrice, IRAUBEAI, giving characters 'character' by thinking about not just what, but who, the character is, and what employers and art directors will likely expect from a concept artist. He also drives the point that art is a very individual discipline, and while talking about art is all well and good, it takes hours and weeks and months and years of actually applying it to develop your own skills, and there's no getting around that. I'm really enjoying the classes, and more importantly I feel I'm taking away ideas and concepts I can apply, I always leave class feeling inspired to create.

[FlameDragon]

I think this open figure drawing session I go to has been the best instruction so far. The teacher actually came to me to give me help, she borrowed my pencil and was showing me different approaches I can take to drawing the figure.

[Farvus]

So far I've been to few places when it comes to art courses. One was some small atelier with open still life drawing lessons. It was quite good and I learned there some basics like measuring proportions or observing values but nothing more than that.
I also went to some paid lessons in Academy of Fine Arts which prepare people for entry exams. Teachers there were completely enigmatic. I paid much more money than those first courses and during few hours of drawing still life or figure they approach your work maybe two times and they only tell you that the leg is too short or some part is too bright. I always wanted to learn a bit of theory behind drawing/painting and it was even hard to get it if I asked directly. Either they don't know how to explain it or for some reason they don't want to share too much. For observation it could be fine but I had no clue how to apply it all to imagination drawing and there wasn't any good book. It wasn't useful for someone who wanted to do illustration.

Later when I got internet, I found such book like "Andrew Loomis - Eye Of The Painter" and it clarified many things. The teachers analysed and commented my work through those basic composition principles like Unity, Simplicity, Rhythm but they never really used these words or anything even close to that. Maybe they consider it as too much theory but at least I know where I'm going with my composition. Earlier I had completely no direction with what I was doing.
Right now I prefer books. I know there are some art courses which could be amazing but in my case it was mostly disappointment.

[Ryuartyi]

I am! I've had art teachers that actually made me NOT want to draw during my general education. The only thing that kept me in art was the comic idea that I'm still running through my head. I'm taking two art classes right now, one I'm planning to drop. 2D design has taught me NOTHING yet, all we've been doing are paper cut out designs. My other class, my life drawing class is hard because of the 2.5 hours of constant drawing; my mind turns into mush and I lose all the progress I made.

I really just need the two letters of recommendation for the atelier, so I don't know if I can get them another place except an art teacher. I'm getting pretty frustrated with all this.

[J Wilson]

I think I was lucky and had a pretty decent art education byt he standards of a lot of schools in the US. The school focused on fundamentals, and I'm very happy to say I had life drawing or painting 6 hours a day, at least 3 times a week from sophmore year on. Not all of the classes were great, and we had out share of absolutely useless teachers, but they didn't last long. We actually had the ability to share what we thought of our teachers, and if they didn't cut it, they were gone. The school was very heavily biased towards realism and strong foundations, which annoyed some students (the ones that felt like they didn't NEED that stuff to "express" themselves), but for those of us who were serious about illustration we got a LOT out of the school. My only real regret was not getting enough input at the end on portfolios and where to go from there. Great foundation, but little direction on where to take it and how to proceed.

I live near Yale, and I know several people who have taken the Yale art program, and they will tell you that they don't really teach you anything, other than how to justify your work, or talk about it. It saddens me that art, in some places, has no connection to basic skills. My opinion is, if you've accidentally enrolled in one of these schools, leave and find another. If you are looking for art schools, look at their catelog and read between the lines. You can tell if they are focused on fine art with no connection to old fashioned art principals or not. If the student's work in the catelog doesn't look like what you want to be doing, don't go there. Do an internet search on the instructors, find out what their experience is, or at least see what their work looks like.

I honestly think these days that a very strong education could be had without an art school. Spend the money on books, dvds, and life drawing sessions in places that don't require signing up for a course. Every so often get an artist you admire to give you some one on one time to point you in the right directions and critique where you currently stand. Art schools are great for structure if you get a good school, but a bad one is money wasted.

[FlameDragon]

At the very least, do you guys think taking the foundational art courses will be a decent idea? I have one more semester left (summer), but I'll only have 3 classes instead of 5. Maybe I could take an art class or two as well. I really need to solidify my grasp on the basics like shapes, shading, perspective, etc.

[Joshua Fountain]

Most of my classes have been sub-par.

I've had perhaps 4 really good classes that taught me alot.

My big thing was I had a natural talent coming in, so was a bit stuck up about it. My first real drawing class with a good teacher beat that out of me pretty quickly. I am grateful for that class it taught me humility and alot about light and shadow.

My first painting class was half and half. Spent alot of time learning technique but over 2/3 the semester was spent doing extremely tedious work that really didn't solidify anything I was learning.

Fast forward through some of the most horrible 2D/3D/Drawing/etc, etc, etc classes ever... The teachers weren't "there" I should say, mentally. I didn't learn anything aside from what I taught myself.

I had some superb printmaking classes. I learned the meaning of mercy from my professor (heh) and he really helped me learn alot. Currently going through Jewelry/Smithing and more Drawing classes which I am actually really enjoying as the professors know what the heck they are talking about and are eager to share with the students.

I mean there are the occasional ego trips I can understand... but most of the experiences I've had have been so bizarre I felt like I should drop out of school and just pursue it on my own. Which didn't turn out so well as my parents expected me to work full time if I wasn't in school (I was paying my own way through school anyways) and working full time in jobs that are heavily physical and then trying to have the energy to pursue a mentally draining activity like art is a no-go. Funny how they correlated. Besides, I needed the subtle push of being in school to be motivated. Sometimes people need that.

I am just hoping I'll learn something invaluable on my way through college... as the amount of money I've spent on my odyssey certainly merits it in my view. I'm so in debt at the moment I don't know how I'll cope when I get out in the real world... but I am so very close to graduating.

[Digital_Blacksmith]

Back in my college days, I had this one teacher who would teach you a few basics, give you a thing to work on, and tell you if your good, and tell you that you suck, and what you can do to fix it, even if your doing some other style. But every other teacher I had was complete crap. You had to do art their way, in their forms, when they say to. I even got a F from my high school because I did things differently then her favorite students who were jocks who didnt even know what a pastel was (small town, cheerleader coach is also art teacher, art studies in high school classes are going to hell.)

[Flake]

art studies in high school classes are going to hell

Both of my high school art teachers were actually really good.

I clearly remember sitting in class as one student explained that her next piece would be an abstract exploration of something really twatty through the medium of paint, I also recall the teachers explanation that "No, it wont be, stfu and learn to paint first!".
This was from a reasonably successful abstract painter.