Diary | School Days

Mid Quarter

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:13:45 -0500

The Art Institute divides the year into four quarters - Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. Each quarter has two terms of 5-1/2 weeks with no break in between. There is a two week break after each quarter.

The Fall 2007 quarter was my first full quarter at AIO (I started at Summer II). I remember feeling so much less energetic at the start of the second term, although I didn't really think about why. Now, as I face the last day of Winter I, I understand the problem: context switching. It's whiplash going from full-speed-ahead (which is where every class is by the end) to starting over with a new subject, a new instructor, and new classmates. How am I supposed to start thinking about Typography when my head is still in Information Design?

I did decide on one ritual. Last term I sent a thank-you email to all of my classmates, and a separate one to my instructors. I realize this probably makes me a dork of some kind; I expect there are a lot of rolling eyes on the receiving end. But I did it for two reasons: one, I want to be the sort of person who says thank you; and two, it's a separation. There's no good place in the classroom discussions to say "Thanks and good luck" to the people you've just been through the wringer with. As for the instructors...some I have liked better than others; but I've also seen some of what they've had to deal with. They might not be interested, but I figure a sincere thanks never goes awry.

I miss the two week break. Sometimes it feels too long, like I'm losing momentum; but I feel so energetic and organized at the start of a quarter. Now I feel a bit like I do going to work on mornings after Em has been up half the night: I know I can do it, but I worry that most of it will be on auto-pilot. Of course, last term I got engaged in the subjects, and it all worked out; but I sure wouldn't say "no" to a vacation right now.

Tomorrow I start Introduction to Audio and Design and Typography. The typography class actually involves producing graphics, so I may finally have projects to post again. I may even post some of my audio projects, if they are interesting.

Tonight, though...I think I'll take a break.

Secrets of Success

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 22:49:46 -0500

Well, I got another two 'A's.

It's a bit unsettling, in a way; I've never been an 'A' student, at least not since grade school (and even then I'd always get "Needs Improvement" on my organizational skills). And it's not like I'm not working hard; I am. But...well, I can't help but wonder if sometimes my grades are good because I'm compared favorably to some of my fellow students, rather than for the actual work I'm doing.

So far, I've hit two types of crowds in these classes. The folks taking courses like Media Communication - required for a Bachelor's or Associate's degree - tend to be quite serious. The folks in the introductory art courses are all over the map - some are serious, others seem a bit unfocused. I speculate - and this is maybbe unfair - that some of the unfocused students are studying for a certificate rather than a degree, and are therefore maybe less used to the necessary discipline. There are not, to be fair, a lot of students like this; but I do notice them a lot less in the required degree courses.

I've had a couple of instructors now remark that I'm doing unusually good work. It's flattering, and frankly a lot of it is because I can write. But I've also come up with a methodology that so far has served me well:

1) Know the course requirements. This is simple, but a lot of people miss it. I make sure I have the required textbook and software by the time class begins.

2) Follow directions. I read through each assignment before I begin, and again before I post. I still miss stuff sometimes; but I have caught more than one error this way.

3) Submit work on time. It still amazes me how many people post late. School policy is that late assignments get no credit, although all of my instructors to date gave half credit for late work. Things happen sometimes - one poor guy was flat on his back with the flu one week - but there are always a few students in class who post every single assignment a day or two late.

4) Own up to difficulties. Class discussions are just that - discussions. While there are often right and wrong elements to an answer, I've discovered that making a good faith effort and then remarking on my personal experiences with the difficult areas of a particular question or assignment will generally get me a good grade. I like doing that, too - I remember at Wellesley how grateful I was when someone would put their hand up and ask a question I thought was stupid, because then I didn't have to risk looking foolish. Now that I'm old and I care less what people think, I am far less shy about asking questions, even if I think they're obvious or dim. I learn more - and sometimes, I do think it helps to clarify things for other people.

5) When in doubt, ask for clarification. I am a little OCD about instructions, certainly; but an awful lot of these on-line courses use really vague terminology. If I read an assignment and it doesn't make sense, I ask. Maybe I'm the only one in the class who is confused - but more than once, it hasn't been just me.

6) Just do it. Twenty-one years after my first college graduation, I find I am still good at procrastinating. But the thing is...the assignment comes due whether I work ahead or not. Best to get it done early. It never comes out as good on paper as it does in my head - but it comes out OK, and it comes out on time. On time, as it turns out, is huge.

Oh, and one more:

7) Help your classmates. If someone is struggling with something I understand, I try to help. If I have a suggestion for someone that I think might help, I give it. I try to put it in positive terms - "I really like this aspect of your project; but have you tried doing X instead? I don't know if it would look any better, but it might be interesting." Not only do I tend to get the same treatment in return - which is invaluable to me, especially as a non-artist in art school! - but it's a good way to get the instructor involved if he or she hasn't responded to me much. (Especially if I give a piece of advice that's entirely wrong. :-))

Six 'A's so far. I don't know how long I'll be able to keep it up; at some point I'm going to hit a subject that makes me stumble. But it does feel good to start out this way.

Completely Exhausted

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 19:11:57 -0500

Today is Week 5, Day 2 of the second term of the fall quarter. I have been flat out for ten weeks now, and MY BRAIN IS TIRED.

Classes are good this term. My Media Communications class is reading- and writing-intensive; but it's interesting and fun. I'm writing my final paper on television science fiction in the 1960s, mostly so I could write about The Twilight Zone and Star Trek. I've had some interesting conversations with my classmate, including a careful exchange with a woman talking about "reverse McCarthyism" citing an article in the Washington Times (a Sun Yung Moon paper) that used innuendo to suggest stars were afraid to come out as Republicans. My Digital Imaging class has thrown me head-first into Photoshop without a net. It's a lot of fun, but a little hair-raising. Photoshop skills vary throughout the class, and as usual I seem to fall about the middle of the pack. One of the people from my design class is in this class, and just as he was in the other he is creating really lovely, professional stuff. It's always a joy to see the work of someone who really knows what they're doing in Photoshop.

Oh, yeah, currently I've got an A in both classes. I could blow it, of course; but I will do my best not to.

One week from Saturday I'm done, and then I get three weeks off. Next classes are Information Design and Speech. I was going to buy a new iMac (which comes with a built-in web cam) for my Speech class; but given that I still haven't been motivated to finish up my office, I'll probably just buy a web cam for my laptop. (For now - that iMac is still in my future; and in the meantime I get to bank the interest on the money.) I'm a little curious how a speech class is going to work in this online environment. I am also not nearly as nervous as I probably should be!

Two 'A's

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 19:45:20 -0500

You remember the instructor I was ranting about? The one who (maybe) accused me of using black? Here's what she had to say about my final project:

I gave out only two perfect scores for this assignment, and you are receiving one of them.

Amazingly enough, I'm now less irritated by the use-of-black thing.

In all seriousness, I take this as a serious compliment. Throughout the class she never held back from telling us if our designs didn't quite work. Whether or not I agreed with her - and really, apart from the one issue, I could see what she was getting at, at least in what she said to me - nobody could accuse her of being a pushover. That I managed to impress her a little means something to me. It might even mean I don't completely stink at this, which would be nice.

The only puzzling thing is who else got the perfect score. I looked at everybody's work again, and at least three of them I would easily grade higher than my own (and I'm pretty proud of what I did). But of course, she's looking for some very specific things; and although I know better now what they are, I still don't have as much practice discerning degrees of "goodness" in a design. I just know which ones make me say "Yow" and which ones don't. There were a lot of "yows" in my class. Even the ones I didn't like as much as my own were pretty amazing.

It was a difficult class, and a frustrating one in many ways; but I sure can't say I didn't learn anything!

My question now is: which of my instructors this term is going to drive me crazy? So far there has been at least one each term; but two points does not make a straight line. I'll know better after the first set of grades, I suppose. I know grades are only one sort of measure - but among other things, they measure whether or not my employer will keep paying. I did well last term; I'll try to do well this term too.

Rant

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 06:42:29 -0500

Okay, I'm mostly over it; but I haven't seen my grade yet.

Week 5 of my design class was focused on color. Great, I thought, this should be easy - I've been learning color theory in my other class for a month. Well, I should've caught a clue after the first assignment - the friendly old hue scale/value scale/saturation scale exercise. As I did in my color class, I brought the values toward black.

My instructor's feedback? Value needs to go toward white.

Well, no, actually; value is the measure of the amount of hue in a color. Both shades (darker) and tints (lighter) are changes in value. But no problem; it's her playground. I changed it.

Then we have the project: take one design, and use four separate color harmonies: monochromatic, complementary, split complementary, and analogous. Here is what I submitted. I will admit I desaturated a lot - I figured I had some bright colors in the analogous and the split complementary; I didn't want to do too much of the same thing. (I second-guess myself too much, I think.)

What was odd about this assignment is that - for the first time - the instructor was off the boards for two days straight, and most of us did not get any pre-due-date feedback. That's not unreasonable, really; after five weeks we should be able to help each other. I got a lot of good feedback, and ended up lightening a lot of the darker shades I was using so they didn't blend into each other so much. So I posted the assignment as a final, and let it go.

And she tells me she doesn't understand why I used BLACK in the assignment.

There is NO BLACK. She carped about the browns, too, which strikes me as really random, since one of my base colors was orange; but it was the remark about black that bothered me. I told her the colors were actually dark blues and oranges; she came back and told me her monitor had just been calibrated.

So was she accusing me of lying? I don't know. I haven't had a grade on this assignment yet. I don't expect it to be terribly good. (That's more of a general irritant than a worry over my grade; she could give me a zero and I wouldn't be in all that much trouble.) And she's certainly welcome to dislike some of my combinations because I toned things down too much - that's a fair criticism, and I don't disagree with it. But don't tell me I used black when I DID NOT USE BLACK. I am not fibbing about this, and it bugs me to no end that she might think I'm making excuses after having been "caught out."

But there IS no black in this. I mean, there's nothing even close. Is it really that different on a CRT? I always thought my monitor rendered things darker rather than lighter; maybe not. She has made me aware that darker colors might be an issue when I'm doing submissions to be viewed electronically, and I appreciate that information.

BUT THERE IS NO BLACK. None. And I resent the implication that I'm lying.

Oh, well. Today is the last day of class. She hasn't graded Week 5 yet - probably very smart, since we're all frantically trying to get all the work done for the short week (Week 6 is only three days). I am starting to get over this; but when I see my grade I suspect I'll get aggravated all over again.

By Christmas I won't care. By Christmas I will have completed my next two classes: Fundamentals of Media Communications and Digital Imaging for Web and Multimedia. Not a lot of call for designs in either of these classes. The Digital Imaging class focuses on Photoshop techniques; but as far as I can tell from reading the assignments, we're mostly supposed to contribute images every week that the class can choose from for a final project. I may have some photos to put up, but not much else.

Trust me, though - there will be more rants. I'm picking up the artistic temperament quite quickly.

Hours in the Day

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:43:45 -0400

I am exhausted.

Em has been sick. (She had another febrile seizure, which took about ten years off of my life and harmed her not at all.) I have been sick. Steve has been sick. Nobody has been sleeping. Work has been frustrating. School has, of course, not slowed down for any of it.

I find I am afraid to take a breath. If I stop, I may never be able to make myself start again.

I have this theory that I'm getting through my classes mostly on momentum. Read the assignments, follow instructions, submit everything on time. Be polite, cheerful, and chatty. Actual talent, at this point, seems unnecessary, as long as I have enough to translate the lessons I'm supposed to be learning into a visual. And if I disagree with a critique from the instructor - I make the change.

That may be the biggest difference between the student I am now and the student I was.

In one of my earlier classes, one of the students was complaining in the chat room about one of his instructors. He was dinged, he said, for using the wrong color of paper for his assignment. It was a design class, he reasoned; how could they possibly justify dinging him because he used his imagination and thought outside the box? The thing is, though, that in a professional situation he's going to be dealing with people who want X and not Y, and they won't care a bit that he prefers to do a design with Y - or even if Y is a better choice. Their game, their rules. Schoolwork is much the same. I may have thought my original texture design fulfilled the requirements of the assignment, but my instructor didn't. Guess who gives out the grades? And in addition to that - regardless of whether I was "right" or not, I thought more about what I was doing and pushed my imagination a little further. I am learning; I am not creating designs for my own enjoyment.

My age doesn't hurt me here. I've been working long enough to know that you can create the most perfect, efficient, elegant solution to a problem; but if the guy you're solving it for doesn't like it, it gets tossed. End of story. I'm hoping someday people will pay me to do design, and if they tell me they don't like a draft I'm going to smile, nod, redo the project, and keep the check.

Is it crass to be mercenary when I'm going to art school? Too bad.

Reasons Not To Read Ahead

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 22:03:00 -0400

So today, having posted my Day 5 assignments at a pleasantly early hour, I decided to read ahead a little.

Each class has more or less the same pattern: Day 2, discussion question. Day 5, two design exercises: one technical, one artistic. Day 7, class critiques. The technical exercises are usually pretty quick and easy, so I figured I'd take a look at what was coming up and maybe do a little preliminary work.

Well, that was a mistake. Not only did I discover that next week I need to produce an informal composition for my design class (what, no parameters??), but also that there's a Final Project looming in Week 6. (Did I mention Week 6 is only three days long?) No instructions, just a "portfolio-level" piece of art.

When did I ever claim to be an artist? Oh, yeah - when I applied to art school. Well, at least I have 3-1/2 weeks to think about it. Yikes.

Next week's exercises for my color class are also shaping up to be frustrating. We need to do the old make-the-same-color-look-different-by-laying-it-on-a-different-background trick. Not as easy as it looks. I did the Week 3 reading (Josef Albers, a fascinating and unconventional writer), and it seems that inexperienced folk like myself are supposed to tackle this exercise with trial and error.

Art is Not-Math. My brain is having a hard time with the concept of an infinite number of right answers coexisting with an infinite number of wrong answers.

Perhaps I need to turn off my brain a bit more often. I fretted quite a bit over my floral design, but I didn't get the same kind of criticism I did for last week's negative space design. So maybe it's better. I think it's better, at least right now. The other thing I'm learning is that designing is a bit like writing for me: I have to get away from it for a while before I can look at it objectively. I can look at the negative space design now and say "Oh, yeah, of course - too much black!" But I truly didn't see it at the time.

Is that learning? Maybe? A start, at least?

Intimidation

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 15:32:32 -0400

I was doing fine with all of this until my last week of Strategies for Online Learning, when everyone had to post a digital portfolio. All of those people I'd grown to know over the last five weeks, all those feelings I had of being on an equal footing - poof! Out the window.

These people are artists. Real artists, with real talent, many with established careers. I am an infant compared to these folks. Dabbling in web design and taking a life drawing class a decade ago makes me a casual hobbyist, not a professional.

I felt, quite suddenly, insecure and embarrassed. What the heck was I doing?

Of course, I realized after a while that everybody starts somewhere. Each of these talented artists had had a first design. Each of them had felt frazzled and uninspired and discouraged at some point (even though for some of them I'm guessing it was in grade school!). Each of them admires another artist they believe they'll never equal.

So I'm still here, starting the second week of Fundamentals of Design and Color Theory. So far...I'm still intimidated. I've received some nice feedback on my color designs; but they weren't that difficult, given the limitations. Fundamentals of Design deals entirely in black and white, and I'm finding it very difficult. My first project didn't come out too bad, and I got some useful criticism; but the other designs for this assignment were gorgeous. I can't help but feel that I'm entirely over my head. This is supposed to be an introductory course, and sometimes I just feel hopeless.

But how else am I going to learn?

So I try to focus, and try to design something that isn't some derivative of something else I've seen, and try to keep myself open to the suggestions of others. I just hope I don't discover I'm completely devoid of talent, or this will be a very short college career.