End of Summer 1 Reflection

June 1, 2023

 This month I'm assisting an undergrad Drawing Intensive class twice weekly.

Yesterday they started gesture drawing so I had to join. After my first attempt, the professor reminded me not to elongate the figure, so I spent the rest of the class suppressing the good old FIT days. I haven't practiced gesturing for a bit so I had a blast and now I'm hungry for it again.

The students took turns modeling for 5, 3 and 2 minute poses. It was fun but we stopped after every sketch to talk about it. I wish we had gone straight ahead for at least 4 drawings. I had fun drawing different body types and the individual characteristics of each student within the same drawing session. It kept me "on my toes", as we usually draw the same person for the duration of one class.

Here are a few drawings from the session, in chronological order. These are nice and large so my arm definitely felt sore after such workout. It was a great feeling! : )

Charcoal pencil on Newsprint. 24"x 32"

Home is where The Boo is.

June 20- I just moved into a little room near my school. I'll be heading home for the weekend and will be here during the week until the fall semester begins. I'm currently assisting and taking a few extra classes, so I'm still driving a lot. I will probably spend more time here once the semester begins. Let's hope it goes well! Boo is very curious about this place. Lets hope he does well with the change!

My rented room near UCF, on the day of move-in.

June 15- Got to do some much enjoyed drawing practice while assisting the "Drawing Intensive" class this week. We did something pretty cool yesterday, which is a "cage drawing". I've never done one of those and it was a lot of fun: easels are placed around the model and cord strung between them at different angles. The model poses and you draw the strings as well, concentrating on preciseness. The cage drawing was three 45 minute sessions. The professor wanted exactness in measurements and angles.

Today we got to play with changing the setting as we wished, so I added the suggestion of a tree and a rock to my figures.

The figures with the tree are 45 mins. each.

Charcoal pencil on Newsprint. 24"x32"

July 15- While assisting 2 undergraduate classes for 32 hours p/w, taking 3 academic graduate classes, training to be one a docent at a local museum and working part time this summer, my friend's wise words have become my motto:

The only way out is through.

I've got 6 assignments, 5 docent training sessions and two final research papers to complete in the next 3 weeks. I'm looking forward to August 7th, when it all ends. I will then have about 2 weeks of rest before

I start my second year of graduate school.

Reminder to self:

Everything is temporary. Keep going. It's not supposed to be easy.

Aug.4- One down. Two to go. This one is a P/F, voluntary class to add to my transcript. Hopefully it will make a difference.

12 weeks that were well spent! The other two classes remaining are graded, and part of a "College Teaching & Leadership" graduate certificate that I'm also pursuing.

Yay! I'm so excited about this!

August 27- The first week of the fall semester has come and gone, so I better update this album with the second part of my summer events. I use my FB records to document my life at UCF, so please bear with me.

During July and August, I offered to assist two, six week classes: 2D Design Foundations with Proffesor Shannon Lindsey and Drawing Foundations with Proffesor Theo Lotz. They graciously allowed me to shadow them and interact with their students, who were entry level. Here are some of the works produced in these classes as well as other related events. Photos taken and shared with professors and students permissions.

I also began my training as a docent at the Rollins Museum of Art, started to prepared my studio space for my second year, taught summer (online) Foundational classes at Elite Animation Academy and moved to a little bedroom next to UCF, where I now live 99.9% of the time. But that's stuff for another album. : )

I am incredibly grateful to be here and can't imagine being anywhere else right now.

End of Year 1

END OF YEAR ONE REFLECTION

I have just finished the last assignment of my last class of my second semester. This brings my first year (out of three) of my MFA in Studio Arts and Emerging Media at UCF to an end. Yay!

It has been a challenging and frustrating year, mainly because I felt I had to prove myself and my skills, as this year I am the "outsider" and only student who is not a recent graduate of UCF. My classmates in the incoming cohort are less than half my age, giving me a new appreciation for the trials and tribulations that I have lived, while inspiring me with their lust for life, optimism and focus. Everyday, I tried my best while kicking myself for being so rusty, seeing only a shadow of what I could be, if only I had not been distracted and had not distanced myself from my personal artistic practice for so long. It was a painful experience and one that I had to face and move through regardless of how I felt about it. 

First Semester

Besides from the required Studio Concentration class, I did not take a studio elective in my first semester. Instead, my time was occupied with an Advanced Art History class and Desing Principles class (both theory classes), academic research, reading and writing. Knowing fully well where I stood in relation to where I once was, I both dreaded and looked forward to the spring semester. BUt first, I had to take a few days after school had started to deep clean and set up my chosen studio space, which had been well loved the year before. Generally speaking, it was clean enough for a working studio, but apparently not for me. I had to get on my hands and knees, scrub baseboards, fill holes, sand walls and repaint with a favorite wall color to truly make it my space. 

At this time I was also still working as a full time substitute teacher in my (former) classroom at the middle school located an hour + away from UCF, so time was (and contiues to be) my most precious commodity. At the benginning of this semester I also decided to get tested for ADHD, which turned out to be a very real thing for me. Finally, after 53 years of  torturous self deprication and confusion at my inability to be "normal", I was forced to show myself some compassion and to look for resources to help me suceed on this new endeavor. For this, I am grateful. 

Midterm came in extraordinarily quick! Midterm at the graduate level at UCF consists of each student setting up their work in their studio and inviting professors to view and give feedback on it. Although it is an informal review, I found it to be extremely helpful and a great opportunity to talk to professors whose expertise was new to me due to scheduling. Attending professors are there by inviation only and drop by anytime from 9:00am to 4:00 pm, while the event takes place. As this was the first time I encountered the large majority of professors, I incorporated some of my previous work into my set up, to familiarize my visitors with my ideas and aproach. Food is provided throughout the day. 

Here is the video of my first midterm review. 

 The final critique came equally fast eight weeks later. Final critique is a formal event, attended by invited professors, program administrators, upper division students or/and family members. Students choose specific times and locations in which to hang their chosen works in the studio's common area walls and are given a 20 minute time frame in which to rpesent their work and respond to the audience. The audience moves from one location to another, asking questions and/or providing feedback as they see fit. This is also an all-day event and food is provided for all attendees. I'm not going to lie, I was nervous when I saw the number of people who showed up. It was well attended by many new faces, including former professors and notorious allumni from out of state. Students support each other by taking notes during each other's presentations. Midterm and final critique days are exciting and exhausting but also, greatly appreciated! 

Here is a quick tour of my first final set up.

Second Semester

With the exception of Studio Concentration class, graduate studio classes at UCF are blended (made of upper level undergrads and grad students) and not instructional. Graduate students are expected to "know their stuff" (skills) and create work that demonstrates mastery of a chosen medium while developing a cohesive body of work. This was an intimidating notion to me, because I am the kind of person who thinks I know nothing most of the time.

In the spring, I took Advanced Drawing with Associate Professor Theresa Lucey and Advanced Painting with Professor Carla Poindexter. In both classes, the upper level undergrads were inspirational and created superb work. The professors are admirable in their own disciplines and their expertise and love of teaching were present in every interaction I observed.

Left: Base Drawing. Charcoal on newsprint, 24"x30".Right: Final Drawing. Polychromos pencil and conte chalk on Arches paper, 16"x 20"

The Advanced Drawing class provided students with much needed drawing practice from models, complex still life set ups twice a week, and weekly homework assignments. This class provided an excellent opportunity for me to not only refesh my forgotten basics, but also rebuild my confidence as an artist. 

Graduate students were not expected to create homework but rather bring their drawing practice into their independent work. Class time became serious brain-gym time for me, as I reacquainted myself with drawing concepts learned 30 years prior and blended them into my observations of the UCF instructional method for drawing. I challenged myself to capture someone's likeness from life again, so that was my focus. Prior to taking this class, I had heard of the specificity of the drawing teaching technique at UCF, so I was not only curious but also a little intimidated about it. It turns out, the method relies heavily on analizing intersecting lines to determine angles, which is something I had experienced at the High School of Music and Arts, the Art Student's League and FIT (SUNY). I had also recently reviewed this concept as explained in the title On Drawing Tress and Nature, one of my favorite classic drawing instruction books, written by the victorian arist J.D Harding. 

First portrait after my first instruction of the "descending line inspection" technique as taught at UCF.

The thing that I found unique here was the encouragement to make and keep the many marks made duting the intial scanning of reference points that compose a drawing, as part of the end result. Keping these marks  show how the artist's eye moves throughout the work, thus keeping evidence of the drawing process at all times. Thanks to this approach, I now have a deeper understanding of the process of drawing as well as a new appreciation for this aesthetic and teaching method, even when I chose not to use it in my own work. 

From left to right #1. MM235.7 NOBO, #2. MM17.6, Big Cypress. #3. MM116, Alvin Ward Park. #4. MM178.9 Micco Landing. #5. MM239, #6. MM226

In painting, I started the semester with a few, 9"X12"monochromatic studies based on photo reference I had taken during my FNST Thru-hike. I used a limited value scale, which enticed close observation of value shapes. At the beginning of the semester, I moved towards a highly planned illustrational style, but at the end I was searching for evidence of a more visceral and spontaneous process in my work. Doing so allowed me to discover joy in the range of marks I produced, while evolving the concept of what a "good" painting should feel and look like for me. 

The midterm and final critique followed the same format as the first semester's, bringing stress, excitment, determination and regretably, quite a few extra pounds into my life. 

It truly is like riding a bicycle, even if you wobble and almost fall, eventually it comes back. After my first year, I am grateful beyond belief to be here and eagerly look forward to the next two! 

And now, I need to get ready for a super busy summer!