Watt's Atelier?

[SpazMcFlash]

My buddy and I are looking at attending Watt's in a year. We found out about the school from seeing it
mentioned on here a number of times. So now I'm hoping I can get a lil help from you guys so I can join in the Watt's fun!

So what is a good area down near the school to live that has decent rent?
We're up in the Bay Area... so I'm counting on rent being cheaper!?!
What kinds of jobs are around there and what kinds of work/school schedules do you guys have going now?
Also what is a good class schedule to pick off the start?

I'm hoping there's a way to survive and go full time there!
We went to the school last weekend and thought it was totally excellent!

Thanks for all of the help! :D

[nil]

it would have been more appropriate to post this in the Art Schools & Education (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?forumid=15) forum. youll get more replies there and if you search in said forum youll almost certainly find a previous thread or two pertaining to this very topic.

[tinyhands]

well the rent down here isn't cheap either. I dunno specifics, but i think you end up just having to look around. The classes are 10 week semesters with about 3 week breaks in-between. Its always good to start with the core classes. Head drawing, figure drawing, quicksketch, etc. Its best not to stray away from the fundamentals. Too often people wanna go and start doing concepting, or illustrations and such, but they don't have the necessary skills to execute them. So if you do go, stick with the core classes first.

[SpazMcFlash]

Doh! I'm tard... if a MOD would like to move this thread into the Art schools & Education forum I'd be very greatful! :D

tinyhands - I want to take the whole 2-3 year program if possible. I'm planning on starting out with the fundamentals and will probably end up doing that for a long while. Now that I'm out of college I finally realized that the fundamentals are the most important thing to learn. Damn me for being young and stupid. ;)
Thanks for the feedback.

[dzu]

You can expect to pay between 800 to 1000 per month for a 1 bedroom apartment in a decent neighborhood. You can always rent a room from someone or split the costs with your friend. That will drop things down to 500-600 a month. As for jobs, pretty much any job offered in the bay area is also available down here. San DIego is a pretty big city so it depends upon your skill set and how much time do you want to work. ALso, unless you live withing walking distance of the school, you need a bike or car because public transportation really sucks in SD,

Classes are offered usually 1030am to 130pm, 3pm to 6pm, or 730pm to 1030pm. Those times are pretty standard but the classes themselves will move from one time slot to another and the instructors teaching will switch around too. Quicksketch and 3/6 hour figure is offered on Saturdays, which makes a pretty grueling schedule (9 hours of class time) but you learn so much in that one intense day. Head Drawing seems to vary sometime during the week, but usually during the evenings and is usually packed. The intro to tonal drawing class runs on Sundays and the Head/Figure/Quicksketch is a sample platter for all 3 cores and is usually offered 2x during the week, once in the evening and once in the morning. Painting classes seem to be offered usually during the daytime and afternoon sessions and elective classes are usually evenings. Friday night is the uninstructed workshop where you can totally suck and people like tinyhands won't ridicule you and make you cry (just kidding :D).

I'm an unemployed bum taking a FULL load. I'm basically in there 6 days a week. Most people aren't in there that much, but a good load would be 4-6 classes with most of those being the core classes and either 2 electives or even more drawing in the head/figure/quicketch and drawing workshop. If you're starting out, then probably the tonal drawing and the 3 cores is a good start. That should leave you time to work or do studies at home. If that is still too rich for your blood, I'd start with just the Intro class, or Intro and maybe the Head/Figure/Quicksketch. Hope that helps.

[tinyhands]

ha ha... lol:D

Yeah, if you plan on being a full-time student, which is best, then just be prepared for some long days. Dzu is taking just about as much as you can without killing yourself or having a brain hemerage.