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.