Last evening Arts and Sciences 095 students heard presentations from Lila, Rachel and Stephanie F. who talked about the artists they are researching, and the drawings they are doing using these artist’s styles. You can see some emulations of several other students below (Dali, DaVinci, Matisse cut outs, etc.).

We then went over to the Davis Center (4th floor – see pictures below) where students met in groups of three to read their papers to each other and critically comment. An anonymous written evaluation of this hour afterwards showed that while many students learned from reading their papers out loud, and a few got some feedback, many others felt this peer review exercise was not particularly valuable because students in their group did not know how to provide constructive criticism. So my overall perception is that this exercise has some, but limited, value. I think everyone enjoyed getting out of Cook building for awhile and there was, I saw, a short collaboartive dinner break on the second floor prior to paper readings upstairs.

After our time at the Davis center we returned to the classroom where students worked on finishing up their grid exercises, or doing emulations for their papers.

The pictures below are samples from the afternoon/evening. If your picture or your work is not shown, let me know. I keep trying to get everyone in, but posting time, lighting, and a variety of conditions constrain these efforts.

We started off yesterday with presentations by Grace (on DaVinci and Degas), Stephanie S. (on Botticelli and Escher) and Jamie (on Matisse and Picasso). They showed the work of each artist, talked about their styles and then presented a few of their own drawings emulating these styles.

When these were done, students asked questions and wrote short evaluations of the presentations in their journals, and we left for the Fleming Museum where we drew sculpture. When this was completed we then returned to the classroom where we worked on grid drawings of family, friends, and others (including Barack Obama!) The images below show the Fleming work (all done from sculpture), followed by the grid drawings.

Thanks to everyone for working so hard for four hours. We will continue with presentations next week, do collaborative peer review work with our papers (please bring an extra copy or two with you next week), and then work on drawings for your manuscripts (emulations).