Art College Frustration and Questions - Page 2

mad4color · #16 05-05-2012, 10:27 PM

A classmate. The first photo the closest to original. I was trying to show her transparent watercolor; it got messy. I decided to go over it with colored pencil, and thought it would look better that way.

It did! It's not that realistic, but we both like it, and she sees herself in it. Also, the myriad of colors I used helped her break out of the local-color rut in her own self-portrait.

Second image is digital alteration of the above good quality scan with a mild oil paint.

The bottom two images are digital alterations of image sent to myself off camera phone.

I knew intuitively that this one would be fun to play with in computer!

mad4color · #17 05-05-2012, 10:29 PM

100% computer generated. which looks like some of my hand-painted abstractions!

Rob't Emmet · #18 05-05-2012, 10:55 PM

I had some amazing instructors at a community college in the 1970's, sculpture, graphics and painting instructors all had pieces in the Smithsonians collection. My photography instructor was Ansel Adam's adopted daughter Miriam Patterson, she hung with Brett Weston, his father and Ansel's family when not teaching or out shooting herself. These folks lit a fire in me for art. Unfortunately, the military draft and a low lottery number cut that education short. But the fire they lit still burns. º¿º

mad4color · #19 05-06-2012, 12:58 AM

I am having fun now that the thread is going good. Paying for community college is a great cheap way to get studio space and storage. I don't think I will even take art history online in the summer.

I should have more time in summer attend social activist meetings and yoga, and maybe sketch n my local museum one night a week and check out a creativity night at a church.

And, increase my involvement here!

I really don't want to subsidize the American university system more and don't think that's necessary for me! I do plan on returning to one of the community colleges in fall.

After we repeat a course twice, we get charged extra tuition, so we just keep changing course like Watercolor I and II, Painting I and II, Figure Drawing, 2D desgn, and 3d design. And then there's all the digital art courses! And Advanced Painting and Advanced Watercolor. Perhaps the instructors can invent something to help classes make!

But, like I said, even if I have to pay more for tuition, $300 more for three hours in a long semester is cheap! I still have several more options for rotation.

I love Design. I am thinking of switching back to Design from Painting. I think can repeated 2D Design once more without extra tuition, and then maybe I can take 3D Design a couple of times.

I told my instructor I wanted to put texture in my paintings. I just had to find a medium I could use without bothering my allergies. He had called me rather "sculptural" before I had even built up on the paper. I like paper better than canvas, and I like to get right down into my paper: attack the surface, work it!

I tried Aquapasto last semester, but I couldn't tolerate the odor! I gave it a girl who is very sculptural with her paintings, and she still hasn't used it!

This semester I played around with acrylic modeling paste on wood, and then casein on top, and found a great substance for me. My instructor could hardly wait to put a real damar varnish on it. It dried so fast. I asked him; he seldom gets to varnish oil in class since it takes so many months for oil to dry.

And for the work and time I put into an acrylic paste and casein on wood with varnish, I got a classical oil paint look It looks like an oil painting, which I suppose it is now, with some that oil varnish seeping down. I think I spent no more than 3 hours total on it in two or three class days. Also, the materials cost was minimal! I bought a 12x12 inch piece of hobby wood at Michael's with a half-price coupon for $2.50.

The acrylic paste and then the casein, with some transparent watercolor worked into it, was acceptable and pleasant for me. More me than working with oil! And I can tolerate the smell of damar diluted in turpentine for a little while! I have a big covered patio attached to my apartment for that!

I left my more textual stuff at school, so I can't scan them and upload them right now. I should be able to get them up next weekend.

I may have another casein dry enough for varnish next week.

Whatever the costs are of community college are where the rest of you live, I know that $140 for approx about 120 hours of class time in 4 months is a steal!

mad4color · #20 05-06-2012, 02:14 AM

Oil that I have difficulty. I painted this several years ago, over five years ago,and it's on Russian linen. I never could decide about it. I thought about painting it over, but there was stuff and liked.

It's not that great of a reproduction for the color. I digital-tinkered to get color closer to original.

So I took it to class. Various ones liked the colors and strokes. I do like these colors in oil, a typical palette for me. I seldom use cadmiums and other expensive metal colors.

The suggestions included that it does need something. More violet from one guy. My instructor said to think on it a while, and that he liked the brushwork and colors and what was going on.

Then it occurred to me to ask our old-lady-in-residence. She'd laugh at that description! Been painting all her life, has just attended this community college, hoping for an AA. Quite an oil painter. And a painter of people!

She said more titanium white definitely, maybe more purple.

So I thought maybe it needs more contrast. I did not get design suggestions, but all the feedback helped. It has does have three crosses in it. Now I am thinking of working in more Christian symbols, like a simple fish.

I do know that most of it is in water-soluble oil, and it formed a good solid film. I am thinking of lightly wiping it with alcohol and giving it a thin coat of linseed oil. Let it dry for a day or two and then work on higher contrast and more design.

I have allergies to turps and mineral spirits. When I paint in oil, I usually use some oil, walnut or linseed for a medium. I am working on building up a collection of safflower and walnut-oil paints. It's hard for me to believe that linseed is not toxic. That smell! It's just rancid and drying. That's what makes linseed great for paint.

I am well aware that the safflower and walnut films may not be as rigid as linseed, but I paint thinly anyway. I may mix the safflower and walnut oils with watersolubles that do have linseed oil. Somehow, they got the smell diminished in the water solubles.

mad4color · #21 05-06-2012, 12:52 PM

Okay, I write a lot. I have an English degree! I partially took up art to quiet the verbal chatter in my head!

It really gets me when I read umpteen posts on here asking, "Should I go to art school?"

If you can go as cheaply as I can and can afford it, GO! The work space, the equipment, the fellowship of other artists, etc.!

So many people blast college art teachers! Even if your art teacher isn't worth two dollars, your other teachers are the other students!

When I see art faculty shows, it's usually a bunch of weird stuff. Well, I am an abstractionist too and I can get weird. But I've got a bunch of realistic figure drawings from old classes too!

mad4color · #22 05-07-2012, 01:55 AM

Watercolor penciil, done from life, years ago.

Sunday, I heard a priest talking about Pope Julian bullying Michelangelo into greatness. I used to say in class, with my best teacher, I hope no one ever has as much faith in me as Pope Julian. She could really get the work out of people.

A friend in the class said, about her, "D@mn, that woman is serious," and he would point to the ceiling and say, "Next year."

imagine painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. We'd really have to see that job in person! I know pix are nothing like the Sistine Chapel.

Was Julian a teacher, a mentor, or just someone destined to encourage potential? I've not received that in the past years, even for my paltry tuition!

mad4color · #23 05-09-2012, 12:04 AM

Today my instructor "invited" me to take his digital art class in fall. I spose that's all he's interested in. Later, the other degreed lady and and I were discuss how much free use of the facilities we got for our paltry tuition, along with the nonteaching in the class.

Our resident old lady, who has been painting all her life, and is probably working on an AA hoping for a bachelor's said she didn't get any written comments on her work either!

I'm thinking another student may be right that our instructor can't really paint!

mad4color · #24 05-09-2012, 09:19 PM

An artist is an artist is an artist. Today I had lunch with a semi-retired Broadway, film, and voice actress. She asked me what did the instructor do anyway?

I have been mulling it over, trying to make myself see the truth and wondering why I did not see it sooner. It does not matter how many college hours I have. He's still getting teacher pay!

mad4color · #25 09-14-2012, 10:36 PM

This conversation went dead. However, now we are in September. I have switched colleges and now have an older, mature, more experience, MUCH better instructor, and am getting so much more for my money.

He's about 70 and has no intention of retiring. Art is still what he wants to do.

So that will compensate for last year.

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