My thoughts on drawing

I came into Duke as a pre-med student; however, my navigation down the winding path known as Duke undergrad has somehow lead me here. During my junior year, I decided to no longer be a pre-med student, which was a devastating blow. If I wasn't pre-med, then what am I? I ended up deciding to change my theater minor to a major and see where this would lead me. It lead me into the theatrical design, which I absolutely love. However, I had trouble communicating my ideas to my professor and the other student. It was then that I decided I must take a drawing class because drawing is a form of communication that I had to master if I wanted to go into theatrical design. I have now reached the end of the drawing course and I have to say, I think I have improved since the beginning of the semester. Much like a foreign language, drawing takes practice and serious concentration. It requires 100% dedication if you want to master it. I may not be 'fluent' in my drawing (I know there is still a lot of room for improvement), but I am steadily on my way--one pencil stroke or charcoal smudge at a time.

I have to say I enjoyed drawing. It allowed me to see beyond what my brain wanted me to see (if that makes sense). I became a better observer and began to portray the world the way I see it. I literally enjoyed everything about this class. The only things that I disliked about this class was having charcoal smudges on my hands, arms, and sometimes my face. I also disliked the fact that I couldn't give it my complete undivided attention due to other coursework. I never felt like I had enough time to finish everything I wanted to finish in my drawings. My favorite drawings to do were probably the last three assignments. I liked tackling landscapes, which I was able to practice in all three assignments. I also liked the fact that I was able to practice drawing people within my last two projects. I am going to continue to develop these skills and become an even better artist/drawer.

GO ARTSTIGATORS!

Thoughts on Drawing

I found that drawing was a lot more work than I expected it to be. However, unlike a lot of other classes, I enjoyed doing the work, but still I had some trouble keeping up with the sketchbook and doing the assignment drawings on Tuesday nights. I didn’t particularly like the drawings that we did at the beginning of the class, but the ones later one when we took two weeks for each assignment were more enjoyable for me even though they took much longer. I also had trouble adding photographic elements into the last two drawings because I struggle with scale. However these drawings were still very fun for me because of the challenge they posed. I found that while I liked using the compressed charcoal more when drawing, my drawings turned out better when I used the graphite. I wasn’t the biggest fan of using the charcoal pencils though. I think the main thing I learned in this class was how to draw foliage, especially with the final three drawings, particularly the one that I drew of the gardens.

Previously to this class I had taken a couple drawing classes in high school, but most of my art experience is in painting and ceramics. This drawing class is the most intensive drawing class I have taken. I think that some of the techniques that I learned and that I developed in this class can be applied to painting, yet I’m not sure how to apply them to ceramics as much.

Originally I took this class because a visual studies course is an art history major requirement and because Debbie and I wanted to take a fun class together. Even though it was a required class for me, I had a lot of fun taking it. While I won’t be taking another drawing or visual studies class next semester, I may try to take one again later while I am here at Duke – likely only if I have a less work intensive schedule because it turned out being more time consuming than I originally thought. Overall though, I really enjoyed taking drawing this semester.

-Stephanie Bowen

Thoughts on Drawing

Drawing at Duke has been an interesting experience to say the least. I signed up for the class because as a Cultural Anthropology Major and Information Science and Studies Major I hadn’t taken a class like this since middle school. I remember truly enjoying it an being excited about drawing in my sketchbook. As I am looking towards a career I thought that it would be a great idea to take a drawing class since graphic/web design is a serious contender.

The class was actually a lot different than I thought it would be. I was expecting more of a lecture style similar to what I had in middle school. It was somewhat of a guided approach to drawing and art. I have to admit that the first day of drawing when we sat down in front of the objects and had to draw them was a nice hit of reality that I needed. Drawing was going to be a challenge. I appreciate being thrown into the situation rather than guided because it showed me what my weaknesses were. Had I been guided I would have essentially been blindly following directions, however being thrown into the situation showed me how I see the world in terms of special arrangements, shapes, negative space, colors etc. I have to admit I am embarrassingly oblivious.

I think that this was a lesson that I really needed to learn on my own and it will help me later on in life if I go into a career of web/graphic design etc. Similar to my peer Sujata Professor Fick often told me that my brain was overpowering what I really see.  At first I took it as a euphemistic way of telling me that I was terrible at drawing, but as time went on I realized what he truly meant.  This class taught me that I scan the world rather than really look at it. My brain makes up information for all of the information that I didn’t bother to focus on and that’s something that I would love to change about myself, because I don’t know how much I’ve been missing out on.

This class has been a fantastic learning experience artistically and personally. It’s taught me even more respect for the arts and people who are capable of translating the world into art and making it meaningful. I think that I would love to continue practicing drawing but without the pressure of receiving a grade. I think that it really takes time, effort and determination from inside to draw  and draw well and I’m glad that this course was an introduction into this life lesson.

My thoughts on art

If I could redo college all over again, I would major in art. (Of course, Duke offers no such major and I would probably have had to go elsewhere for my endeavors in this hypothetical "Edge of Tomorrow" type scenario.) I am not particularly confident in my drawing skills, but getting lost in the details and spending hours upon hours trying to capture the flow of movement or the glint in someone's eyes is oddly satisfying despite the frustration and cramped, smudged hand that results. In spite of my love for drawing, I had not sat down with pencil or paintbrush in hand or doodled at the edge of a notebook since probably freshman year of college. It is already my last year at Duke. I think I have just been caught up in schoolwork that before taking this class I had completely forgotten that I do draw.

A classmate of mine from high school that I knew fairly well did in fact go to art school. Once in a while when she posts a piece of hers she completed on Facebook, I sift through her album and think about how different my life would have been if I had maybe done what she was doing. As a first generation Chinese-American, my life aspirations err on the side of practicality. Art as a career has never been an option.

I used to take art lessons back in middle school and high school. Classes were on Sundays at my art teacher's house. We would always start with a quite warm-up doodle--a horse or a person because my art teacher was particularly fond of those subjects. Then, once we had woken out of our morning daze, we would sit down for a still-life sketch, and if time would permit, we would pick up the paintbrush for some watercoloring. Once I was old enough and my technique deemed solid enough, I graduated from watercolors to oil paints. While I loved drawing and painting, as high school progressed, I got busier and busier and the time I dedicated to drawing diminished greatly to the point where I didn't even feel like I had the energy to wake up bright and early on Sunday morning to attend art class. At some point I stopped going altogether. I never bothered with taking a drawing class in high school. The closest I came to fine arts was a perspective drawing class I took that involved usng a ruler to draw 3-dimensional geometric shapes. While making the perfect cube was interesting enough, it was never as satisfying as drawing a person or painting a landscape.

Last year, I studied abroad in the UK at University College London. There, on a whim I took a course called 19th and 20th Century Art in London. We went all around London to the various art museums and learned about what the title of the course indicated--19th and 20th century art in London. I remember walking into one of the many rooms of the labyrinthine National Gallery during one of these class excursions and seeing Van Gogh's Wheatfield, with Cypresses in front of my eyes. The painting sent chills down my spine. I remember sitting down in art class trying to copy the painting with oils from its likeness in a magazine when I was in high school. To be standing in front of the real deal was a magical experience for me and reminded me why I did in fact love art so much.

While I do think about what my college experience would have been like if I had studied art, I don't have any regrets. Art is something I will be doing for the rest of my life.
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-Alice Huang

A trip to Art Institute Chicago By Kay Zhang

During the break, I had a marvelous trip to Chicago. The afternoon in Art Institute Chicago was definitely the most enjoyable and incredible part. (And the warmest) I cannot wait to share what I saw with people interested!

I had the luxury to look at the authentic drawing from Claude Monet, the most famous impressionism artist (and whom I blogged about). Looking at the water lilies after writing and researching about them is an magical experience. I stood in awe in front of it and greedily looked and looked.

The impressionism gallery also possesses the well-known painting by Georges Seurat， A sunday on la Grand Jatte. The significance of this painting is beyond my words. 

And finally, priceless paintings by Pablo Picasso and Van Gogh. 

Thoughts on Drawing

"Are you an art major?"

"Are you a VMS minor?"

"Are you studying art in college?"

No, no, and no. Although I've been drawing for as long as I can remember and took 2 and a half years worth of art classes in high school, I never thought I'd take an art class at Duke. Don't get me wrong - I LOVE to draw and I doodle uncontrollably. Put a pen in my hand and I'll be drawing without even realizing it. But I was never a big fan of "structured" art classes. My IB art class in high school was a free for all. I could develop my own style and draw whatever subjects I desired to, real or imaginary (although I did get some disdainful looks from my principal when my drawing of a nude woman was displayed at the senior art gallery). On the other hand, that art class had no structure whatsoever, so I spent most of the year slacking off and the last two weeks frantically starting/finishing 10 quality drawings. They probably would have turned out better had I used my time wisely.

After high school, without the outlet of a drawing class, my doodling increased exponentially. God only knows how many times I opened my notebook to study for a test and found nothing but strange doodles on every page. Yikes. My GPA probably would have benefitted from an art class or two just so I could get the restless doodling out of my system, but I just never thought I'd have the time to take another art class, and the prideful part of me thought I didn't NEED to take any more art classes. I had my own style and I knew what to do with it - what else does an art hobbyist need? It wasn't until Matt told me about this class (and I realized it could fit in my schedule) that I decided to give it a shot.

In this class, I was forced to draw things I wouldn't usually draw. Still life pieces and landscapes are not my forte. I would rather draw the human body (I'm obsessed with achieving anatomical accuracy and I even considered a career as a medical illustrator for 10 minutes back in '08) or work on typography, cartoonish figures, or whatever else my hand decides to draw. And I usually draw the same way I write essays - the night before, all in one sitting, without any of this "study drawing" or "rough draft" business. But the more time I spent on a piece, the more satisfied I was with the results. This seems like a no-brainer to most people, but I'm the type of person who starts and finishes a task in the same day instead of working on it a little bit at a time. This class also reminded me of things I already knew, like the fact that I HATE charcoal and prefer a plain ol' mechanical pencil over all other media. But being forced outside of my comfort zone has helped me grow as an artist, too.

Outside of this class, I will continue to draw because it's just a part of who I am. But to go back to the questions that opened this post - You don't need to study art in an academic setting to be an artist.

Be observant. Think differently. Draw. Repeat.

My Thoughts on Drawing

I have grown up around art my entire life. With my dad’s profession being an artist, we have never had a bare wall in the house and always had every supply necessary to make our school art projects look professional. With a little help from my dad, I always turned in the best looking projects as a kid, and I always felt like art was a piece of cake.

However, later in my life, this all changed. During middle school (after I decided it was no longer appropriate to have my dad help me with projects), I noticed that my visual arts skills were no longer comparable to some of the other students in my class. But it was also during this time that I realized my creativity came more natural to me in other forms, such as musical instruments and dance. My interest in visual arts began to fade as my talent in performing arts flourished.

Whenever a family friend would ask me, “Can you draw like your dad?” I would always reply that my sister got all of my dad’s artistic genes and that I was keener on performing arts. But this wasn’t really the entire truth. Although I loved performing arts, I loved visual arts as well. I always have and still do. I have always wished that I could simply pick up a pencil or paintbrush and produce a masterpiece.

My sister never had any more help than I did on art projects, yet she continued to excel at drawing, painting, sculpting, and scrapbooking. When we reached high school, she was always making the best Student Council posters and class projects, and I was on the dance team and in the orchestra. My sophomore year, I tried my luck in a ceramics class, and although it was one of my favorite classes, I always ended up bringing home unsymmetrical plates or wobbly pots. Even to this day, when my friends see the stuff I made in ceramics, they think I took the class in middle school. But hey, I had the time of my life.

Even when I came to Duke, I knew I would end up taking art classes because, no matter what the end results would turn out to be, I knew I would have the most fun in them. It always seemed like my skills never really improved in the classes, but I would always have fun trying! Therefore, when I walked into drawing class on the first day, I felt like most of my time would be spent having fun and trying (with a stress on trying) to improve. I didn’t feel like I was ever going to have the ability to create an image that I would be able to say “Wow” to, but I knew that either way, I would leave at the end of the semester saying “Wow, I loved that class!”

Although I still feel like some people have a gift and are born with more artistic abilities than others, after taking this class I realized that in order to become better at anything, you need to have patience and you need to practice. I never thought about this much, since my dad could literally draw a realistic image in just a couple of minutes. But after taking this class, I know I really did improve. I would always be proud to show my dad and sister my work, and even they noticed how much better I had gotten throughout the semester. It seems crazy how far I have come… I remember when I almost had a panic attack when I first heard the word “shading.”

As I started to see myself improve, this made me want to put more time and effort into my drawings. I did not only catch myself saying, “Wow, I love this class!” but also saying, “Wow” when I completed an assignment every week. I feel like performing arts will always come more natural to me… but this class made me realize that I should ever give up on improving in visual arts as well.