Hello all!
This last week at Perpich Center for Arts Education was a productive one, students were busy finishing projects, critiquing them, and starting up new projects right away. The drawing class had been busy working on their visual notations, a drawing assignment where students created compositions that included both imagery and text in order to practice using text as a design element. After a solid week of in class work time, we began the critiques with feedback from the class and afterwards received a description and reflection from the artist. Though the students were all following the same prompt, there were no two pieces alike as they all varied greatly in content, construction, and technique. Approaches ranged from those having the feeling of a field guide, travelogue journal, or blown up sketchbook page to those that became their own fantastical worlds where text served as different natural elements such as grass or smoke. Having been at Perpich for a few weeks now, it was incredible to witness the entire process of these students creating such confident works of art. Upon receiving the prompt, most of them were confused by this unusual assignment and unsure of which direction to take it in. They began their drawings tentatively and slowly found solutions to filling the space and incorporating text into them. Students learned to use text as design and as a mark-making technique, and in the process they created dynamic compositions that seemed to exceed their own expectations. It was a pleasure to work with the artists during this time and to be able to attend their critique!
-Roman