The Ongoing Art Journey of a High Schooler
Hello there! I've had an rather rough last day of freshman year, so I wanted to wrap things up here on Steem. This is my first post on here and I'm not sure what to expect, but I've heard that it is an absurdly positive community as far as social media goes. I'm looking forward to learning more about it.
Today I took my final exams for Ceramics and Modern World History. Now, it usually baffles people when I tell them that I take Ceramics. I'm somewhat notorious in my grade for my drawings, so why am I not in Drawing I?
Let me let you in on a little secret. I took Drawing I for about six days. Then I dropped out.
I still haven't answered the question. Why? What was so bad about a HIGH SCHOOL drawing class that you had to drop out?
Pssst. It's because the drawing teachers. Hate. Anime. They think the anime/manga style is cliche.
You'd think they would grade all art styles fairly, but if they don't like yours, you're in for a rough class. I hear about it from my art club friends all the time.
A friend of mine has amazing line art that's heavily inspired by the comics he's read.
Once, this friend got the comment "Nope... you have to do something different" back with his artwork, along with a 0/5 for a homework grade. Here, the word "different" means "normal". Basically, his teacher was restricting his creativity and ability to think outside of the box.
Nowhere in the class description for Drawing I does it say that only "normal" artwork, or more specifically, realism, is acceptable.
Honestly, I could've taken that class, sucked it up, drew everything in a realistic style, and waltzed out with an A. It would have been so easy.
I guess I should mention that I made a great first impression on my teacher; she praised my self portrait in the first few days. But her praise wasn't something I could be too proud of. Actually, I was a little ashamed.
Before learning how to draw anime, everything I drew tried to mimic real life, because I didn't expect other styles to be any harder. I didn't know that drawing anime had its own quirks and challenges. I used to think hyperrealism was the ultimate end-goal. I really looked up to things like that.
But I didn't want to scrap my style for a good grade in Drawing I. In the end I chose the class that would give me more experience; the class that I'd actually enjoy. Here's the inside of a bowl I made a month ago.
I'm happy to announce that I have no regrets at all, and will be taking Ceramics II next year.
But for now, since the school year is over, I will focus on getting my artwork out there. I'm currently chasing after a dream job in animation, and have a long way to go.
Nice post.
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I definitely know how you feel, I use to draw a lot of anime in art class back in high school, but also knew how to draw realistic things as well. To me, drawing real things isn't always fun, in my opinion. I was taking a drawing 1 class in college and my instructor had me draw things that I didn't want to draw. Nevertheless it was boring a times. I understand that it was for learning purposes but geez. （；￣д￣）
Mhm!!!
This is the case with almost every art class. Not just in high school, but also in college. Unless your art teacher was born around the time that anime became popular (unlikely) then your style of art isn't going to get the recognition it should.
Art classes can be useful for learning things like color theory, proportions, and perspective (which is very important in manga). But...you can pretty much find classes and tutorials for all of that on the internet. Thankfully some universities are starting to recognize anime as a style of drawing and are offering more and more classes related to it. Just have to find the right school. 😉
But I think you made the right choice in this case. Your bowl looks awesome 🙌.
Yeah, that makes sense considering the art teachers here are all seniors. And the internet is amazing; Youtube is pretty much my art teacher.
And thanks again!! I love talking to my fellow artists :)
First of all welcome to Steemit! I see you are new. You will love it here, I'm sure. :)
Sad to hear that art teachers are still so old fashioned and don't grade all art styles equally, because that's what is the foundation of art - it being unique and distinguishable.
Great to see more artists here on Steemit, will be sure to follow you, would love to see more of your work! :)
Thank you! I briefly looked at your digital art. It's pretty much the next medium I'd like to learn, so I followed you to watch your artwork as well :)