My name is Jim Flahaven. I live in southern Maine. In my own studio practice I make non-objective drawings and paintings (you can check out my work at jimflahaven.com). I have taught drawing, painting, and design at the college and university level for over twenty years. In developing drawing syllabi I have always been struck by the particular challenges involved with creating relevant and effective assignments for drawing class.
The difficulties involved with drawing homework seem to be specific to the discipline of drawing. Think about it: the way that we teach design and the problems we present for our students have well-established roots in the Bauhaus tradition. Furthermore, it seems that art instructors (in this country anyway) teach design in ways that are eerily similar from one university to the next (little black and white compositions devoted to positive and negative space, etc.). Painting instruction often takes its cues from the fact that paint is such a charismatic media. Students are all too happy to start by smearing oils around. Frequently painting students are given great liberties both in class work and in homework.
But with drawing?-poof! Neither tradition nor the pure seductive nature of the material comes into play. In drawing, we do not
rely on tried and true approaches and we do not simply let the students play with the material (It is important to remember, most courses of study in drawing start with observational drawing- a resonable and logical beginning. I am discussing the teaching cliff we encounter once we get past the first few months of instruction.). For most students charcoal lacks the sex appeal of paint. Additionally drawing instructors, for some inexplicable reason are usually downright miserly when it comes to sharing the details of exactly what happens in the studio classroom. There are dozens of textbooks out there devoted to drawing. Some of them are terrific. But rarely do they touch on assignments, beyond the perceptual. Drawing Forum is a response to that.
Please put these ideas to the test. See how they work for you, either in the studio classroom or in your own practice. Your input, good, bad or indifferent is most welcome. And if you have drawing ideas you wish to share, I would love to hear from you.
The difficulties involved with drawing homework seem to be specific to the discipline of drawing. Think about it: the way that we teach design and the problems we present for our students have well-established roots in the Bauhaus tradition. Furthermore, it seems that art instructors (in this country anyway) teach design in ways that are eerily similar from one university to the next (little black and white compositions devoted to positive and negative space, etc.). Painting instruction often takes its cues from the fact that paint is such a charismatic media. Students are all too happy to start by smearing oils around. Frequently painting students are given great liberties both in class work and in homework.
But with drawing?-poof! Neither tradition nor the pure seductive nature of the material comes into play. In drawing, we do not
rely on tried and true approaches and we do not simply let the students play with the material (It is important to remember, most courses of study in drawing start with observational drawing- a resonable and logical beginning. I am discussing the teaching cliff we encounter once we get past the first few months of instruction.). For most students charcoal lacks the sex appeal of paint. Additionally drawing instructors, for some inexplicable reason are usually downright miserly when it comes to sharing the details of exactly what happens in the studio classroom. There are dozens of textbooks out there devoted to drawing. Some of them are terrific. But rarely do they touch on assignments, beyond the perceptual. Drawing Forum is a response to that.
Please put these ideas to the test. See how they work for you, either in the studio classroom or in your own practice. Your input, good, bad or indifferent is most welcome. And if you have drawing ideas you wish to share, I would love to hear from you.