After reading his book, I believe that Dow's teaching examples are still relevant for today’s classroom, especially an ‘introductory to art’ type of class. His method of teaching aesthetics shows a distinct progression to complete compositions. Teaching a student how to create a good design is equally as important as teaching students to comprehend images from our visual culture. While his teachings included very specific examples and artworks, especially those that are Japanese, it is important to understand that it is the basic concepts that are most important and the exercises and examples can change to fit a teachers’ needs. While not all teachers focus on the formalistic qualities of art, they are things that are inadvertently interwoven in every one of our lessons. In terms of exact assignments, many of my colleagues still have students complete a color wheel and scales at some point in their career, nearly exactly the same as Dow did with his students. Is there a better way to learn color theory?
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25 Square ChallengeThis challenge is designed for the students to start creating under simple restrictions, only using lines (of equal thickness) and circles. I've done this in the past with my digital imaging class as one of their first projects, it will help them familiarize themselves with the Photoshop or Illustrator workspace as well.
The basic ideas behind this assignment are similar to Dow's theories. Starts simply, with basic shapes and progresses into a more finished design. Communication between instructor and student is key to student understanding. |