Input On Some Art Theory

jocose

Hi Everyone,

I have reacently started teaching some 3d modeling and art workshops for some local highschool and college students in my spare time.

Some of the students are pretty advanced while others just starting.

I'm trying to write a comprehensive introduction to the theory of art that will act as a primer for those just getting started.

I have a huge amount of respect for the Poly Count community and want to make sure my students are getting the best so I thought I would post one of the write ups I did here for review.

Let me know what you think, if you have any advice, or how it compares to your art education/understanding.

http://edu.cggart.com/wiki/index.php?title=Thinking_Like_An_Artist:_A_Theory_Of_Mind

gray

this strays more into the fine art world more then the commercial art world. there is a an important distinction. most cg tends to be focused on commercial art even if the artists don't see it that way. art theory and fine art at the conceptual level does not have much to do with drawing and painting or visual art. so attempts to answer the question "what is art" are generally not about process or craft. if your interested in these things then i highly suggest you take some 19-20th century art history courses. and maybe an art theory or writing class.

i will hit a few points with abroad brush. i skimmed, so its not a very thoughtful review. just the things that pop out.

1, what you have is along the lines of a personal manifesto with a bit of philosophy. its a statement about what art is in your view. whats important about art. and an attempt to reason some insight into those ideas for the reader.

2. in its current form it would be a bit out of place for a hand out or reading for a studio art class. and for your intended audience i think it to conceptual. you will not really find that sort of thinking until your into university studies in art. and even then its under the supervision of a professor that has a wealth of history to draw from and some teaching experience. theoretical discussions can spiral out of control rather quickly. so i would be very wary to bring up these topics by yourself with such a young audience.

3. for the classroom i would pretty much scrap everything and start with "Seeing The Whole". that seems like the right tone. its more grounded in process and understandable, keep it down to earth and focused on ideas about technique. stuff that is directly related to art making. if you go to far away from that you will loose people. studio art classes are more about process, materials, and technique.

4. on a final note about your wring. the big weak point of your essay is that it has no sources. not one. so there is no base for your ideas to stand on. references are VERY important in art theory when you are trying to form a critical idea and convey that your words have meaning. that's why i suggested history and art theory. if you showed that to a professor they would probably not accept it until you had some references and quotes to a few sources as a foundation for your ideas.

hope that helps a little. as i said its just a skim.

you can find a bunch of good quotes and discussion in George Bridgman's books. other more theoretical text are beyond what i want to post .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bridgman

jocose

Great input thanks. The commercial distinction probably needs to be stressed, and I agree this is art philosophy which doesn't really have a place in studio.

I may not include this in core introduction and instead just offer it as supplemental material.

We might do an art philosophy workshop at some point I think this would be a good starting point for that discussion.

I don't want to come across as too dogmatic as there are lots of views, and I do think this goes too far in that direction.

As far as the sources go they just haven't been added yet. This is a rough draft. Super important I agree.

I would also like to add that this introduction is an outlier from the rest of the workshops. Most of those just focus on very simple step by step tradiationa 3D art instruction with the goal of preparing students for studio jobs.

The purpose of this was more to expose them to ideas.

gray

if you wanted to do a discussion on the side outside of the studio then it could be fun. but again your audience is very young so its going to be tough to have a 'conversation'. usually what you would do with theoretical content is to hand out a reading from a book the week before. then after everyone read it you could discuss it in class and bring up some points for people to grab. but getting people to read a packet before class could be impossible. the key is the references and reading. don't rely on your own writings. use them more as notes about a more established text.

for studio art technique, materials, etc. just let people have fun and be creative. no need for theory.

also you could show a cg video that's always a good thing to do. most people will not get board watching some cool animation.

HapZungLam2

I have not detaily read your document yet. In terms of art theory or being creative. FZD School talks about Visual Library

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnflBERf2zM&list=UUbdyjrrJAjDIACjCsjAGFAA&index=14"]EPISODE 52 - Visual Library - YouTube[/ame]

I wish I'd or my parents had that in mind when I was young. A lot of adult put the kid's creative with a negative denial. Too soon to tell young people whats right and what needs to be done. It caged the creativity mind. This is how I grew up in. I am being too realistic. I thought as long as I can capture realism is the same as good art. Because that is what all my teachers and parents are keep telling me.

Kids love to do stupid stuff and and only kids can do. In adult world if adult do stupid stuff it actually become a creative mind. But how come adults can no longer do stuff that kids do. It is because we are being told whats right and whats wrong and we tend to do things that are only so called "right".

I m so regret that I grew up this way but too bad I can't turn myself back to be a kid anymore. So if I have a chance to teach. I think I'll let my student know about this. Don't be afraid to make mistake. Because mistake can be a gate to be creative.

jocose

Yeah we have all the gnomon workshop dvds in addition to subscriptions to most of the online game and film art tutorials. Its a pretty good program. Just just trying to figure out how to balance in some traditional art talk as it gives context to the commercial work their training for. Thanks again for the input.

Kwramm

Ideally you want to inject some theory in the practice. The best teachers we had would just look at our work and the start talking about the work, the assignment and how theory relates to it. They were all mature artists and not just lecturer's though, although there was sometimes the danger you wouldn't progress far with your artwork in class because you were busy listening. But definitely more memorable than boring theory classes.

About the references: I agree you want them there for the above stated reason. Also it allows interested people to dig deeper.

jocose

Good point about the applied practice. I think integrating these would be helpful so they were directly relevant. I'll consider some ways of injecting this into projects we are working on.