Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Whiney notes.
That's actually part of the description for the Starbucks Special Reserve blend this year: "A flavorful blend with cocoa and winey notes" or something along those lines. I cracked up when I read it. No one else seemed to find it quite as funny...
Seriously, though. I'm about ready to throw my paintbrushes away and give up. This semster has been a terrible one as far as artistic inspiration and creation goes, hence the reason I no longer take and upload pics of the stuff I'm doing. It's just so puke-worthy.
Bethany is our model for this and next week of figure painting class. She and I had a little snark session about my intermediate painting instructor during one of the breaks today. My intermidate painting class is by far the worst of my classes right now; the professor isn't exceptional to begin with, but yesterday she did something that really set me off: she took a paintbrush, picked something that she thought would be good to add to the composition, and painted on my canvas. Now, had she been demonstrating a technique or a color choice, that would have been one thing. But no: she actually made a creative decision about placing a specific form in my painting. My high school teacher used to do stuff like this, and I find it deeply annoying. I mean, my painting might be awful, but it's MY awful painting and I don't want someone else to add anything but suggestions. I wish I'd have said something to her, but my ingrained respect and politeness toward professors kept me silent and seething inwardly. Next time she tries anything like that, though, I'm not going to let it happen.
I was complaining about this in my class today, and before I even said who my teacher was, Bethany knew who I was referring to. Evidently it's not uncommon for her to do stuff like that. Bethany will be modelling for both of my painting courses next week, and was most annoyed to hear that we were going to be doing relatively short paintings in that class. She said my instructor gets her models to do weird things too, like putting them on the floor instead of the platform and making them do really wild gestures, and placing their robes in other corners of the room if the cloth is slightly in the way of viewing. I can totally see where Bethany would be offended by that sort of thing -- especially the no platform thing. The platform not only puts the model in a good view of most everyone, but also sets the model apart from the students and makes more of a performance. It's much easier to view a model objectively on the platform -- if the model is level with you, you're much more concious of the fact that there's a naked person three feet away.
Anyway, I don't usually badmouth my professors like that -- but in a way it's a good thing to let other people know who's a helpful teacher and who should be avoided. Spring course schedules should be available soon, and I know tales of other people's experiences will definitely influence my own choices.
| 1:23 PM |
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