School of Visual Arts '97
Abstract
I will talk about the importance of Bauhaus principles as they relate to the implementation of computer art. In this slide talk I will demonstrate how the beginning artist views the picture plane and how the introductory and foundation classes help enhance visual imagery and page layout design on the computer. I will also outline some positive and negative aspects of using the computer and address pedagogical issues concerning the psychology of teaching in a computer classroom.
The Importance of Traditional Skills Regarding Visual Imaging
Julie Baugnet
Assistant Professor of Art
St. Cloud State University
My talk is based on my fine art and design teaching experiences of the past six years at The College of Visual Arts (CVA) in St. Paul, Minnesota.This is a small private art college with an enrollment of 250 students. The 4 year program is very focused, rigorous and challenging. I taught the Computer I courses which were taken by freshman and sophomore students, after taking Foundation I. Foundation I consists of hand work, nothing on the computer, and the main objective is to introduce and help students understand the principles and elements of art through various problem solving assignments. This includes in depth investigations of line, shape, texture, value, and color as they relate to composition. Students learn how to use materials, do pen and ink studies, investigate space, balance, perspective, and learn vocabulary and theory through critiques and reading. Students concurrently take other foundation classes such as drawing and painting which support these ideas.
As of this fall I have a new position teaching graphic design foundation at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. The differences of teaching in a small private art college and a larger liberal arts university are immense. This new position has definitely influenced many changes in my talk today and I will show you examples of student work from both institutions.
As we all know, many students feel the computer is a magical device that serves up instant images. They pride themselves in using the latest filters and creating what they don’t understand is very trite imagery without a purpose. I look at the machine as a mere appendage, and believe that it should not be used to create art or design without some knowledge of the basic skills that involve the traditional principles and elements of composition. I’d like to define traditional ideas as those that have come before us and have been proven to increase the technical and aesthetics skills of the artist. The Bauhaus ideas for example are most notable: Kandinsky and Klee taught the basic elements of form, and encouraged students to observe individual shapes and their interrelationships. They worked with students to develop a sensibility toward materials. Part of the first six month course was intended to and I quote from a Bauhaus document “...ripen intelligence, feeling and ideas, with the general object of evolving the “complete being” who, from his biological center, could approach all things of life with instinctive certainty and would no longer be taken unawares by the rush and chaos of our “mechanical age.1”... So in this one respect, I see a connection of the Bauhaus to the importance of the foundations course as being a nurturing setting to prepare students for the computer.
Many other ideas are also important, the list is long. Some references I use are Design Basics by David Lauer and Design Fundamentals for the Digital Age by Linda Holtzschue and Edward Noriega. And I also like to refer to my second grade primer and my first inspirations– Dick and Jane.
“The real voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes”
–Marcel Proust
I use the Proust quote to remind students to look at the mundane and use their imaginations to investigate a subject over and over, until they begin to see it with new eyes and have met the challenge of making it into something interesting and unique.
Aside from teaching as adjunct at CVA, I also taught at Minneapolis College of Art & Design, and the University of Wisconsin in River Falls. What I’ve noticed is that both MCAD and CVA have strong foundation courses. When you look at junior and senior work it is at a very high level of competency. In the colleges and universities around the Twin Cities I know of many weak foundation courses. At one of the public institutions students get just 8 weeks of traditional hands-on foundations and then eight weeks of a computer course which doesn’t build upon foundation ideas. This is not enough. They simply have not had the time to investigate the picture plane and process their concepts. The students don’t understand craftsmanship, so when they try to assemble a work it is often poorly done and the work has no integrity. When they work in color they have no real reasons for choosing one color from another, much less a vocabulary. This evidence shows the value of foundations. I see both public and private institutions floundering in the world of technology. Their departments are seen in a better light if they join in on the latest trend. Students believe they will get jobs if they know the latest software, but learning software will not give them strong visualization skills. We now have more to teach in a 4 year program. What is left out and sacrificed is quality, tradition, and the pressing question “What makes good work?”
Traditional principles teach us ways of using the picture plane and they serve as a basis to guide the student through a process of making art. They also give students an orderly way to clearly convey their vision. Traditionally the picture plane was a canvas, or paper surface, and now it is at times a lit-up screen that is accompanied by a slight humming noise. Without the knowledge of traditional principles, and with little education, I believe that it is inherent within us to look at a blank space just as we would look at an empty glass when we are thirsty; Immediately we want to fill it up. And so we see young
student work looking like this.
Professor Aribert Munzner as MCAD calls this the MS or the masterpiece syndrome. He says the students believe they must create something that is spectacular, so they often overwork whatever they do. They work with their first ideas and they fill up the space because of what he calls the F factor-the fear of failure.
The computer is so quick and all of this seems so easy. In fact, in a day, and for just $149.00 you to, can learn to be a designer.
Our world is filled with this misinformation, and it is no wonder the students get confused. The computer is power, we fill up the page, endorse it with an institutions’ logo, and get it to the press. Now there’s thousands of these brochures, so of course the work must be good.
Good design is not that simple, and in a world of so much information we must, as educators help students understand that working with the picture plane is a complex subject that can take many years to understand. In his book Painting, visual and technical fundamentals, Nathan Goldstein says every visual work of art demonstrates the successful interplay of three factors: conception, technique, and fluency2. From the book Design, Form and Chaos, Paul Rand states that design entails a part-whole relationship expressed in terms of space, contrast, balance, proportion, pattern, repetition, scale, size, shape, color, value, texture, and weight3. Just that is quite allot for our young art students to comprehend.
And so this is one of the negative aspects of computer. Type and images are in the hands of everyone and very few people give a second thought to the picture plane. There is no understanding of the history of art, the typeface itself, or even the simplistic notion of how to organize pictoral space.
Many times, students will create an enormous amount of information and keep everything the same size, and again there is no place for the eye to rest, and everything is as important as the thing next to it. In both cases there is no regard for the negative/positive space or to a focal point.
To get students to simplify I help them understand negative/positive space. Early in the semester, I have students do simplification exercises based on the power of shape and contrast. I show them how to thumbnail sketches. When they start this planning I tell them it’s O.K. if some compositions don’t work. In fact I tell them that if they do forty sketches, they’ll only have a few good ones. This encourages them to loosen up. They surprise themselves as they see their progression and realize the many solutions to their problems; they now become more flexiblewith their ideas.Through the process of thumbnail sketches, they start seeing the complexity in simplicity and an understanding for the Mies Van der Rohe idea; “Less is More.” Through these exercises the picture plane now becomes easier to look at and more interesting.
After these exercises other assignments are given. Just this simple notion of negative/positive leads them down the path toward simplification. They forget complexity, and start to accept white space. Simple foundation exercises such as this can make student learning easier, and quicken their perception.
Here is an example where students study composition. They study the many ways to obtain a focal point, for instance through value, or through difference. This assignment was to create a focal point through emphasis.
And the next assignment is to use color as a focal point.
Because of the hands-on foundation assignments at CVA students come to my class equipped with an understanding of how to work with mixed media materials. Many of my assignments encourage the students to combine mixed media and computer to create something that is less predictable and that looks less mechanical. I stress originality and help them combine their interests from other classes such as painting, printmaking, and the artists’ book course.
I encourage students to use their own imagery and not take images from the internet, I try to persuade them that they are the creative ones and if they’re in need of an image, they ought to create their own.
Teaching the computer isn’t easy work. After teaching studio courses in drawing and painting for many years I still cannot overcome the fact that when teaching in the lab students have their backs toward me and their eyes on the screen. It’s like teaching a whole class of people who are watching T.V. There’s something compelling about the screen, and psychologically this atmosphere is alienating and impersonal. It is difficult to get the students to confer with each other, much less get their attention.
I’ve solved this problem by reserving a classroom in addition to a lab. This room serves as a place to talk to each other face-to-face, to critique, and to do thumbnails and preliminary exercises on paper. I also bring up this point at the beginning of the semester and toward the end. I ask students if it would be possible to teach this course through the internet and just have 2 or 3 critique meetings. They quickly come to a majority decision that they like the human interaction; they feel this is very important.
In conclusion, I’ve shown how students approach the picture plane, and how simple exercises can make their learning quicker and easier. I believe that as educators, we need to continue to stress the importance of tradition and to keep the quality of work up to a high standard that will ensure a professional senior portfolio. We need to stress the important qualities that make a good artist –hard work, determination and the enjoyment of putting in long hours. The hand and the mind are most important to the artist, the computer is only one of many tools. The artists of today face tight competition and must prepare themselves by being well-prepared individuals with a strong visual vocabulary.
Works Cited
1. Bauhaus document
2. Goldstein, Nathan. Painting, Visual and Technical Fundamentals. Prentice Hall, Inc. 1979
3. Rand, Paul. Design, Form, and Chaos.