Last week I spent four days at an intensive drawing class at Emily Carr University in Vancouver. It was advertised to be a creative drawing class with a variety of creative freehand techniques, figurative and perspective drawing, and figure-ground and sketch concepts. In fact we spent 7 hours tracing maps, and a day and a half drawing grids and working on graph paper. This was very different from Kath's and my approach to making art. It was an intense and stressful course taught by a self-aggrandizing architect--actually grueling and somewhat of a disappointment.Of course, there is learning available in any situation and I did find out something about designing with overlays and tracing paper. Plus the people in the class were interesting. It was a very international group: there were five beautiful young women from Iran, plus people from Shanghai, Japan, Korea and Vienna. Most of them were studying architecture or engineering.
The two photos here show some of their work. It's actually very interesting and well done. It's just that I wouldn't actually call it creative drawing. More of an architectural graphic design course.
In any case I got to visit with my dear friend Kath and we had a good time together, but the class itself was very intense and and I'm only now recovering my energy from a learning experience that was not what it was advertised as. If I had the energy I'd contact the school to let them know about this discrepancy. I think next time I'll stick to painting classes.
joanna, i've seen art like that before. it's in my portfolio! yes, for many years i drew and painted work using grids and then adopting the perspective of finding "the freedom in the framework" i endeavoured to soften the linear quality of the work by superimposing organic forms. i still like it but recognize it for what it is now that i have the perspective of time. steven
ReplyDeleteWhile reading this post I was remembering the sketch book pages you used to fill with line drawings. They always fascinated me.
ReplyDeleteYou definitely should let ECU know that you were misled. It is hard to write course blurbs but one was really off.
Yes -my son has a Masters in Architectural design - this is the type of drawing he did. Too bad it wasn't as advertised - you really should let them know. You might save someone else the frustration you felt.
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