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/showpos...3&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.

[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]

I know what you mean!

I teach myself everything now.

[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...



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
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!