9/22 and 9/27 tidbits

Mary Ann today addressed drawing style. She gave a few examples of individual student styles that were emerging--dynamic linework, using the side of the tool to create "puddling" shadows, etc. She said, of the suggestions she had been making and would continue to make, "Don't think of it as giving up the way you draw...instead adding to it." I think this will be an important thing to communicate often and clearly since art classroom spaces seem to often have more of an element of subjectivity and vulnerability...this heads off some of the "self-expression" trap and sets up the space as one to experiment and build a personal portfolio of ways to use tools and mediate between what students see and what they represent.

The next week Mary Ann addressed some challenges students were having with the assignment--though I think this comment was meant to deal with more general trends she sees in students in general--at our graduate level too:

"Your answers correspond to your level of inquiry. If you have rigor but aren't asking interesting questions, then all you have is just rigor. If you aren't getting interesting answers, you are asking the wrong questions."

Critique for this project was REALLY succinct. She asked folks to look around and choose two favorites, and why. The first two students who shared these answers chose sets of 25 that were 1) very similar expressions with subtle differences and 2) a wide range of answers, followed by a very brief discussion of why both those solutions worked.

Some examples of student work below: