Art in College for Engineering Major

[jvgig]

I will be attending Penn State in the fall for materials science and engineering, but since I am trying to cut costs by using my AP credits to finish my bachelor a semester or 2 early I will not have any time for art electives. However, like everyone else here I am interested in art.

I have recently began working in oils which I enjoy immensely more than acrylics, although I do use acrylics when the painting has to be transported a lot during its creation. I also do a little watercolor, but have not made the commitment in both time and materials to develop any mentionable skill in that area. For dry media, I focus much of my time on soft pastels and charcoal.

It just so happens that both of the media that I use most happen to produce toxic fumes/dust. At home I combat this problem with a dedicated room with up to several fans directing the air out of the room. It is also worth mentioning that I like to work on the larger size with the smallest canvas being 24x30 working up to 48x60 (so far). Obviously canvases this size need an easel and are a hassle to move and store, especially when still wet.

For an art major none of this would be a problem; however, since I am an engineering major trying to cram courses, I will not be given any studio space at PSU as you have to be taking a class which requires you to have access to it.

Even with my current studio size (22x15) and exhaust setup at home, I still do not like to spend many hours in a row in the room. As I will be sleeping, studying, eating, painting, living, etc, in a 12'x16' dorm (best case scenario), the fumes will easily become intolerable and detrimental to my studies. The space required for an easel and canvas will be difficult to come up with to begin with. Also, the supplies that I use on a regular basis currently take up a cabinet 30"x24"x36" another luxury that I will not have in the dorm environment unless i like to wear the same clothes everyday.

Has anyone else encountered a similar situation? How did you handle it?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Grief]

paint outside.
good ventilation, decent light, spacious, interesting subject matter, not a lot of nudes unfortunately.

get a girlfriend and store shit at her place. you wont have a lot of time for her though so i suggest multitasking and doing your eating and sleeping with her too. this might work if youre into guys, gays tend to be good at making room for things and packing shit, pun very much intended.

first chance you get talk to your advisor and get rid of that silly engineering major. all of my friends from highschool became engineers and make a shitload of money, got into relationships with sterile boring females, and are living their lives without any real conflict and have quickly become empty shells without souls or personality. this isn't a generalization, it is fact, there's even a class about how to become smug and oblivious to all things trendy. an engineering degree comes with 25lbs of assfat that you get to wear immediately. you think youre going to use your awesome engineering skills designing some badass infrastructure for efficiency for computers or public roads or something, but you wont, you fucking wont, you'll be on a phone all day as a go-to mediator for projects which you really have no creative say in.

listen to my advice, i live in a walk-in closet and am unemployed, i have piles of sketchbooks and tens of thousands of dollars of student-loan debt, no relationship, and am grossly underweight and malnurished, i am wise.

[Demo]

Id agree with grief almost 90% on this one but being the son of an engineer and having a girlfriend who also is going to engineering in college i feel i gota say something.

Yes theirs very little chance that you will design the next hover damn or some friken amazing like that but then again theirs probably the same low chance that you will be the next degas, marko, android, raphael, or something like that if u do love art but still wana be an engineer your gona have to make a sacrifice either way either.

*work smaller
*work acrylic, water color, DIGITAL (which takes up like the least amount of space ......sometimes) sketch and do other mediums.
If u truly love art then don't let Oils be your only link to the art world,love it as a whole,

Also along with Griefs thing just because you wana be an engineer dont let your self be molded by the preconceived ideas of what an engineer is just follow the things you love and bring your own personality to it. the rest will follow. no matter what you chose work hard at it thats how u develop the next amazing infrastructure or next Mona Leisa

[Grief]

my trolling is being taken way too seriously lately.

[riceface]

grief is a troll

[Demo]

lol Grief ... u asshole.

[jvgig]

As of now, I am about 95% sure I will end up majoring in engineering. However, I still want to continue with art, even if just as a hobby.

While most people here probably majored in art, has any non-art major been able to secure some studio time at college?

I am not completely opposed to other mediums, but I have come to favor oils over acrylics and water color takes up more space (but is non toxic) than oil as I usually paint with the paper flat requiring a dedicated table/desk which I doubt I can fit in a dorm room.

[Linguini]

Why don't you e-mail the art department head? I think he/she would be able to tell you more about it. Are you going to visit? If so, you can probably go to the art information session and get answers there.

I don't know, oil takes a long time, and if you're taking so many courses, will you have time to paint? Would you be willing to try graphite or colored pencils, etc.? If you're very adamant about continuing with your usual mediums, perhaps you can send them a portfolio and ask them if they can give you some space. Of course, art majors and the people taking art classes will always be put first. Maybe there's an art club?

[Jazz]

Linguini's right about time, jvgig. I'm in the Computer Science faculty, and I find it's quite a challenge to juggle those courses and art practice. Careful not to get yourself overwhelmed. But if worse comes to worse, see if there are places around your community where you can spread out your tools and work. Outdoors is good, as said above.

Importantly, if you're at a point in your studies where you can't seem to do your art AND do the studies, you might need to wait on the art practice until things settle down. :)

[hitnrun]

Some wonderful advice here, but if art won't be something you're trying to make a career out of, then jam on your current major and let the art go for now. Art requires a lot of time. I've been drawing for 12+ years, and there is still a lot I can't seem to do - specifically rainy scenes and waterfalls.

[jvgig]

I will obviously have to set priorities. A painting can always wait, a research project deadline cannot.

I have already shot the art department an email and they basically copy and pasted the general statement stating that since studio space was limited it would only be available to students in the art program. However, I would suspect that if I got to know a professor maybe by sitting in a few classes and asking a few questions about my work, that i may have a better shot at securing some studio time. It always helps to know someone. Has anyone ever done this successfully?

[Grief]

I have already shot the art department an email and they basically copy and pasted the general statement stating that since studio space was limited it would only be available to students in the art program. However, I would suspect that if I got to know a professor maybe by sitting in a few classes and asking a few questions about my work, that i may have a better shot at securing some studio time. It always helps to know someone. Has anyone ever done this successfully?

yes. the biggest issue will probably getting access to the art department after building hours. a lot of schools have digital access codes or keypads and just being an art major may not get you access to all of the rooms. you can most likely store your work in the painting studio without ever getting noticed.

have one of the art faculty advisors give you the tour of the department. doing this by email will not work, visit the painting department head (or one of the studio professors) during their office hours and introduce yourself. say that you are interested in taking art classes and have them give you the sales pitch. it probably wont do you any favors to mention that you do not intend to be an art major, so i suggest telling them that you are going to be an art major. its not really lying seeing how most students will change their major multiple times throughout their college career.

sitting in on classes for free will take a close relationship with the professor. most of the time they will say you have the option to audit the class, which means you pay the art fee, and pay for the credits, but you do not get graded and cannot fail, but you do not recieve any credits. auditing is for bored rich elderly ladies who want to enjoy art classes, or rich old men wanting to be around young art pussy. art classes are hard to sneak into and not be noticed, maybe if the class has more than thirty students... but most classes i was in had 10 or less. (lecture art history classes and survey courses are easy as hell to sit-in on, as they usually consist of a slide show in the dark with a hoard of non art majors asleep)

the thing is if you're an art minor you'll probably have to take a focus area (painting, photography, sculpture, print making, graphic design, etc) through the intemediate level (200 level). doing this will require you to have all the same prerequisite foundation courses as an art major (100 level). so if you decide to be an art minor you'll have as much access to everything as an art major (don't expect an art minor to have any less of a work load than an art major, as it'll be the same classes just not taken through the 300 level and 400 level of sequences).

so your options are to:
- cozy up to the art faculty, which may or may not work, and hope that charm alone will weasel you into class.
- be an art ninja and use the studio space and facilities without ever having permission. you'll have to snag the master code to access the building, or rely on gullible fellow students or cleaning crews to always let you in after-hours.
- be an art minor and have legitimate access to the facilities.
- be an art major and fight off art ninjas stealing the communal gesso.

[Aphotic Phoenix]

... so if you decide to be an art minor you'll have as much access to everything as an art major (don't expect an art minor to have any less of a work load than an art major, as it'll be the same classes just not taken through the 300 level and 400 level of sequences).

Agreed...in my experience, just because you're an art minor doesn't mean you're professor is gonna let you slack on the 10+ hours per week out of class work commitment he/she expects from everyone else in the class. I was however able to escape the inconvenience of the semi-annual trip to New York required for art Majors.

Art facility security does vary by school however. In mine the painting and printing labs were open 24 hours (although the computer area of the printmaking lab was locked), and other labs such as sculpture and photography were closed off entirely after a certain point to prevent accidents and theft.

It is sometimes possible to find co-op studio spaces outside of universities...especially in urban areas. Portland has Flight 64 (printmaking studio, although I've never been there), and a friend of mine creates/sells art in a new art studio/coffee house/recording studio called The Soundry in Vienna, VA (why do cool places open after I move away? lol) If there are any decent art stores near your university, I'd ask the employees if they knew of any similar studio spaces in your area.