What It Looks Like To Take A College-Level Art Class

Before I started taking an art class, I always wondered what it looks like to take an art class. I never even took an art class in high school (too busy with band and choir, I guess!).  Well, if you're curious, here's what it looks like. This is our classroom. (Remember you can click the photo to make it bigger.)

The wooden things are slats to hold your paintings, board, and paper. In the back are very small lockers that we get to use for the semester. Yes, there is a big poster of Elvis on the door back there. I think that is one of the department's professor's offices.  There are about 20 easels and black chairs and small square tables strewn around the room.  Every day it is a tidy mess.

You'd think with only 16 people in the class and six hours a week of guaranteed time together, we'd all be BFFs by now. Well, not so much. The minute you get there, you take 10 minutes to set up, gesso your paper, make your palette and fill your water container. The teacher talks for 15-20 minutes and then we all get to work. If you're a people person (like me) then you take the occasional break to see what someone else is doing or ask for feedback.  So I am glad to say I feel camaraderie with a majority of my fellow classmates.  That doesn't mean I'm talking all studio-time long. Time management in class has been a big challenge for me. I am always taking things home to finish them!  Here was how my station looked one day a couple weeks ago.

Every once in awhile, we have a critique day.  For the assignment below, we had to create three color palettes, then make three paintings of the same exact thing using the three palettes.  It was a pretty interesting assignment. I'll show you mine in more detail a bit later, but you can see it here, the one on the very bottom. We all hang our pieces up and spend two hours talking about each person's piece.

This is my teacher having a closer look!

Here we all are, critiquing.  For the most part, it is very helpful to hear what other's have to say, and it is almost always positive.