Does it even do anything!?

[Tory]

Did you find your high school art class(if you took one) to be helpful at all? Did ya learn anything that actually works in the real world? I'm wondering because i 'v had crappy ass teachers since 6th grade. The current one is making us draw our own 20 x something grids(even though he has boatloads of graph paper) and glue 1 inch x 1 inch pieces of paper in a random pattern to it. He says he is trying to teach us 10th graders how to "measure" and "use a ruler" If he asks us to do this i again i think i might beat him with one.:mad:

end of rant but i would like some feed back

[E]

It's worthless, I always enjoyed industrial tech more anyway.

[Bruce]

You will know when you get a good instuctor.
I had one in 8th and 9th grade. learned more from her than anyone ele I have ever met.

[Inkthinker]

I went to a Vocational High School, where I majored in Commercial Art and earned a trade certification in Advertising Design... so it's not really the same. We spent 3 class periods per day doing art, and had some pretty good, professional teachers.

As for normal high-school art classes... well, I don't know that they're designed to help you much as far as getting advanced experience in material that you'll be able to use to get a professional gig in the art industry. You may have to simply keep practicing, learn as much as you can on your own, and wait until college to learn anything really cool.

Keep in mind, though, that a well-rounded artist with a wide variety of skills has advantages over artists who have never painted with watercolors, sculpted in clay, or attempted to organize a betting pool on how many weeks it would be before your art instructor colored his graying hair again. Even the goofy high-school art courses can lend you some excellent opportunities... besides, what else are you gonna do... weight-lifting?

[Mike]

I had the same art teacher through all 4 years of high school. She was kinda weird and flaky at times, but she always had great assignments.

As per your "ruler" assignment.. Well, I can see that it'll teach you how to blindly judge measurements more accurately, which is always helpful.. maybe just not an art assignment though. I could see that as being a shop class activity or engineering/design.

If you can't get anything good out of this guy in the next couple of weeks, get cracking on that independent study over the weekends and evenings.

[dfbovey]

I was in the AP program and found the classes to be pretty good as far as introducing you to materials and techniques. As has been mentioned it really depends on the teacher.

[Joel Harris]

I learned more from my high school art teachers than I did at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh (which I attended for two years).

[Tory]

The reasone i'm so frustrated is because i go to a high school FOR Architecture and Design. The teach is new, and completly under estimates all the students. I have had many bad teachers, for ex. my 8th grade one wrote the lesson on the board and watched tv for the rest of class. Honestly, i think i teach myself better just by reading books.Who is a better person to learn from? One of the great masters or a guy who teaches 4 year olds how to color. For awhile now i have been bored to tears by instructors who 'teach' me something i learned already.

[Y2Jenn]

I dunno... all my art teachers since the 7th grade hated me.... I was a hellion... but thats besides the point! I had a teacher my senior year that was really cool though. She was kinda older and didn't take any of my shit but she knew her stuff. I think I learned a lot that year. I think its due to that she could spend more time with us one on one if we needed it because there was only seven people in my advanced class. It was nice.

Most of my teachers in college were ex-animators that hated their old jobs. That was kinda a downer for me... :rolleyes:

[bushiboy]

I never learned anything in any class at school, cept for maybe woodshop.
I could always draw better than any of my teachers, and decided to go to vocational school my Jr. and Sr. year to rectify that.
We didn't do much drawing really, but I learned how to turn a computer on and about picas and column inches and how to use a proportion wheel.

[FD]

When I was a kid I never had art classes on the school... :confused:

Anyways, here in Brazil the school system is totally different from the system from up there in north america...

[DrVictorVonDoom]

Meh.
It's very much a matter of motivation. I've had so-so teachers, but I usually push myself (both with stuff I do for here and on actual class assignments) to try something I normally wouldn't. It's more fun that way, and I'm ensured of taking something out of the class.

[InkDrop]

I went to a Vocational High School, where I majored in Commercial Art and earned a trade certification in Advertising Design... so it's not really the same. We spent 3 class periods per day doing art, and had some pretty good, professional teachers.

As for normal high-school art classes... well, I don't know that they're designed to help you much as far as getting advanced experience in material that you'll be able to use to get a professional gig in the art industry. You may have to simply keep practicing, learn as much as you can on your own, and wait until college to learn anything really cool.

Keep in mind, though, that a well-rounded artist with a wide variety of skills has advantages over artists who have never painted with watercolors, sculpted in clay, or attempted to organize a betting pool on how many weeks it would be before your art instructor colored his graying hair again. Even the goofy high-school art courses can lend you some excellent opportunities... besides, what else are you gonna do... weight-lifting?

I did and agree with everything inkthinker said. If you can get to a vo-tech, go. I learned more in my three years at vo-tech for free then I learned blowing 30 grand on college. I loved it. Half your school day just drawing, painting, inking...so much fun.

PEACE,
Drop

[fatmancomics]

I took a drafting class in high school that I really liked. It taught me about patience and detail. I only regret that I took the engeneering class instead of the architecture class because all the architecture students (we shared the same classroom and teacher) had finished drawings of buildings and I had stuff like screws and that little hook thingie that connects locomotive wheels to each other.
My senior year I took an AP studio course because they drawing classes didn't really teach much. All the instructor did in the drawing classes was let all the students draw whatever they wanted. He never really TAUGHT anyone any drawing techniques. Well, I failed the AP course because all I did was talk about comics with some other guys in the class (who drew a hell of a lot better than me and aced the class). I got lazy but the teacher didn't really help much. She introduced us to different mediums every week and didn't give much instruction. She was one of those fleighty flower child types that are so well portrayed in cartoons like Daria, Beavis & Butthead and Recess. I went to junior college after that and had a great set of instructors that were actually TEACHING me techniques and explaining different mediums. I was loving it and told her about it when I ran into her at a play that my high school drama teacher was putting on. She said (and I still can't believe this), "I always found college courses to be very unfulfilling and limited".
I was so shocked that I didn't even respond. I mean here was a teacher to whom I was showing enthusiasm and the best she could do was knock it. I guess some teachers think you stop being a student the moment you're no longer taking their class.
So to answer the question at hand; I didn't really get much from my high school art courses either.

[DeForgeo]

It depends, really.

My current art teacher is the most clueless bitch on the face of the planet. . .

But I've attended a handful of summer courses which I've enjoyed.

To be honest with you, it's the critiques I've gotten here at PJ that have helped me out the most.

[Popninja]

Boy, when you read the subject to this post, you think it could mean ALMOST ANYTHING. Fortunately, it had nothing to do with what my sick ass was thinking.

For me, the one high school art class I took was a complete waste of time. The majority of the time, our projects consisted of simply copying an image from a transparency projected at the front of the room.

I got nothing from it. It actually steered me away from taking any other art courses, until I got to college, where I got into commercial art.

[nate lovett]

in high school i had three different teachers for art. two of them were great, and kept pushing and encouraging me. the other one, well to put it bluntly, she was a bitch. i actuall ythink that she was jealous of me, because she had gone to art school, and even worked in the graphic design/ illustration field, but she couldn't draw worth a sh!t. she had all these cartoon type characters on the wall, that looked like a 5 yr old had drawn them, but yet she had signed each of them. but anyways i couldn't get a good grade from her at all, while i breezed through the others.



oh and as for your teacher, i say beat 'em!:D ;dvl;

[Tory]

Wow this is a blast from the past.
*****UPDATE*****

My evil art teacher quit! YAY! I was so happy. Basically he just lost it. He was all giddy and happy on his last day and was cursing out the wazoo, kept sayin the whole school was bull s--t! Things are looking up, My current sub is not as big of a twit as the last guy. He's more of a fine arts guy which is ok in my book. I also met another teach at the school who was a medicle illustrater! Really nice guy, gave me a hard cover sketch book for free:D Things are looking up!

[...o...k....]

I've never really had art class. I've been in one my entire life. The class did teach me a lil bit. I never really knew such concepts as cross hatching, stippling, negative space, and line movement before I took the class (though it really didn't take much effort to learn it.) It was pretty helpful. However, I could only say that about the class. My teacher was an asshole. He really didn't like me based upon his criticisms on my work. I would almost always try to stretch his assignments because frankly they were boring beyond belief. My proudest moment was when I showed that he was teaching perspective completely wrong. Turned out he really didn't know what perspective really was. I'm just glad he still gave me A's for his class.