Gotta go with pretty much all that fessie said above. I actually do like the first teacher’s piece you linked to, but it is a bit derivative.
What does surprise me is that your teacher isn’t respecting your vision and critiquing the piece on technical proficiency and more objective standards of art. I admit, your piece is not my preferred style of art, but I do think it shows technical proficiency, compositional skill, and the ability to see a project through completely from beginning to end.
I like forceful, abstract art, and I do like some of the other student pieces you linked to. However, your teacher, frankly, sounds like he wants you to follow in his vision of what art should be, not your own. And that’s just not right.
I really don’t think the teacher is mad because you’re better than him. I really do think he has a particular high-minded idea of what fine art is, and your paintings don’t fit into his ideal. I think he is letting his personal tastes influence an objective evaluation of your work.
I agree with the others. Your “teacher” appears to be biased and doesn’t seem to be looking at work from a technical standpoint. It’s hard to put ones own preferences aside but in a class the teacher has a responsibility to look at the art in terms of what the student is trying to express and help achieve that, not try to make the students give him what he likes.
I still want to rework the razor blade on the left. The holes are too big (the notches in the side and the hole in the middle) and it needs to look more metallic. Other than that I think it’s done.
I got an A in the class
The teacher said that my paintings are all too dark (not emotionally, but literally too dark). I explained to him that the aesthetic I’m interested in exploring right now is one of stark contrasts from small, isolated light sources. In other words, dark paintings with concentrated areas of light from one light source. If he wants to tell me that I did that poorly, fine. If he wants to tell me how much I did or did not succeed at what I set out to do, fine. But don’t give me a negative critique on my pants because they aren’t a skirt, you know? But whatever. I’m done with his class, I got an A, and I don’t need to take any more classes from him so I’m happy
I don’t think I really changed anything so much as finished it. I’m glad you like it! Now I have to figure out what to do with it. It’s so freakin’ huge!
I’m replying without reading so my replies may be redundant–to lighten up the upper right you can just continue the hair maybe, it looks unevenly shortened anyway, although to lighten that area is to draw the eye, to discontinue the expected confluence of hair is to draw the eye to the absence…I dunno.
And I like the color.
It is streaky and uneven like so many women’s store-bought highlights, although I’ll admit I prefer the more subtly shaded sections.
The whole thing is pretty emo-I’m-an-art-student (which isn’t to say it wouldn’t sell right away in a cafe or gallery) with the nearly photo-realism hands and painting the face and the razor blade --oooh, I’m an artist; I’m a cutter.
If that’s you, that’s what it is, that’s what’s real, and it looks pretty good.
It reminds me a bit of the posters that were so prevalent at the swap meets in the 90s, something about it, but I think it’s just the prominence of the face, the eyes, the shape of the lips, the moody self-consciousness. It’s all very ironically iconic.
And now I’ve read everybody and I can say I agree! I like that you put in another blade (maybe there were two before but I didn’t see it and it is more a way of it and not so much attention grabbing drama point when there are two) and I still think it looks grabbing, with a message, and the eyes are powerful.
I had a teacher in a creative writing class who was a frustrated genius too. They aren’t very good, are they? Anyway, I certainly like yours better than his.
In the end for me, art is about empathy. I don’t know what it is, but I know what I like.
I wouldn’t buy yours, but I would buy it before his.
I would certainly buy a book with your art on the cover, with your art as illustrations, perhaps a print of your horse for my MiL, and I like your Agile painting and the whimsical lines and held breath quality. I don’t know what you plan on doing with your degree, but I know you could probably do all right selling some prints of your work on etsy and more commercially successful work in publishing. I think you capture moods very well.
Is it possible that a lot of what you took as him saying he didn’t like your work was due to poor communication (on his part, not yours)? I say this because I had a few teachers who seemed to be terrified of ever saying “this is a great painting” or even “this is good.” I think the goal (for such teachers) is to push you to get better, and, especially if they see you as a beginner (which they will, since you’re in a lower-level class, they don’t care about your past portfolio). There can be a fetish for “making the student break out her bounds” or “look at painting in a new way.” This can be incredibly frustrating for someone who already has a clear vision of where they want to progress with their art.
Perhaps he even thought something like “Opal clearly knows how to paint already- she’s just trying to coast through my class without learning anything new” and that made him go on the offensive with you from the start. Now we (I’ve been following your threads since you started with this clown) can see that you really are moving forward and testing your limits, but he might have been oblivious.
Now, there are teachers who can pull off the “I’m never satisfied” thing and make you completely devoted -like my figure drawing teacher who kept making me work on my assignments more each week- I’d bring a drawing in for a crit, and she’d say- this shading is weak, the fingers don’t have bones, blah blah blah- take it back and work more, plus do this weeks homework- by the end of the semester I was reworking 4 or 5 drawings at a time and I thought I’d die and fail the class because she clearly hated me and my work. I ended up half-assing my final because I was leaving school anyhow, so I got a B, but then 3 years later I had another class with her and in our first crit she mentioned that I was one of her most determined students and she was glad to have me back! Because she knew how to interlard the criticism with support, I cite that figure drawing class as “when I really learned to draw.” I tell this stupid story not to pour salt in your “I have a sucky teacher” wounds, but to let you know what I think this guy may have been going for (and failing because he focussed on taste and content issues rather than technical ones)- he may have had a teacher like mine once and is trying, in a fumbling way, to give that to his students.
The fact that you got an A leads me to suspect that he knows you have talent and drive, and that the work you produced is top-notch, especially for an underclassman. The way that I dealt with my soul-killingly bad teachers was to try to take their inane suggestions seriously, at least on smaller projects and in-class work. My rational was thus: I’m not paying all this money and coming to class 6 hours a day so I can do my own thing. A BFA degree isn’t exactly a license to print money, and it certainly won’t be the thing that makes my art any good. If I knew exactly what I wanted to do and learn and create, I’d spend the moolah on a studio and materials, and just make work for 4 years. Since I’m not doing that, I should try to get input from as many people as I can, and do things that I wouldn’t have thought of on my own (even things I find stupid) so that I know what I don’t want to do, as well as what I do want to do. Obviously, YMMV. You do very labor-intensive paintings, whereas I generally work quickly and on paper, so I had a lot more ability to do “throwaway” projects in the name of learning. Also, this strategy only works if you also have teachers you respect who you can go to at the end of the day, so to speak, to get some good critique on your real work.
It’s possible, I guess, but he’s the same way with everyone, and everyone complains that he doesn’t ever actually instruct and his critiques are usually so vague they’re useless. I’ve even heard other professors say bad things about him
And it isn’t a lower-level class. It’s a 400 level class–the most advanced one they offer.
Anyway, I certainly like yours better than his.