Drawing I & Painting I

This Fall students learned the foundational skills of painting and drawing through a variety of exercises and assignments that ultimately engage them not just in the mechanics of the practice but in developing an understanding of perception. While the perception of light and shadow (via understanding values with pencil drawing and employing color theory with painting) is often the primary skill to develop, there is also the perception of edges, spaces and relationships that weave into every assignment. For the Winter Arts Festival you will see examples from still life to interior space, to landscape and portraiture assignments. Because of the online classroom, students also learned a few peripheral skills, such as building their own still life set up, going on a walk with the sole intention of tuning in to a specific color or form in the landscape, collecting specific objects in the natural world and tuning in to the layers of space just outside the window. It is my belief that as screen time engagement increases, it becomes more important to build our sensory abilities of seeing, touching, smelling, listening and tasting. The practice of art is a vital way to do this. And a vital expression of what it means to be human.