It is common belief that multi-tasking hinders productivity.
However, the work created by students in Drawing and Painting II challenges that idea.
Here at the school, drawing and painting classes start out separately the first year, but they are combined in the second year.
However, for many of the students, this integrated class will be the first time they draw or paint, having taken only Drawing I or Painting I the previous year.
According to Drawing and Painting II teacher Donna Sartanowicz, the integration was initially caused by the lack of staff. Most students have preferences when it comes to drawing or painting, but Drawing and Painting II lets them experience both.
For their first project of the semester-long combined class, students are painting animal skulls and shells with perspective. They look at their object from different perspectives, drawing it multiple times until it becomes a full picture.
Learning how to do both can be a challenge, but it also removes the limits of one medium alone, according to senior Ariel Robinson.
“Right now we have natural objects. I have a starfish, and other people have skulls and bones or antlers. You have an object, and you are trying to represent it. It’s a puzzle and a challenge. We are mixing drawing and painting, and we have lithographic crayons and pencils, but we also can use paintbrushes, water and charcoal to really blend them,” Robinson said.
Drawing is the foundation for a lot of things that go on in the visual arts, according to Sartanowicz.
“Like writing, you need to learn how to write in order to do creative writing, but also to study history, to study psycholo
gy, or to study languages,” she said. “The way of recording information for art, the basic language, is drawing.”
Instead of becoming frustrated, many students say they are enjoying the integrated classes and expanding their horizons by learning how to use both drawing and painting to express themselves.
“I actually like it better as a combined class just because I think it’s really interesting to experience both things since they are so different but at the same time use a lot of the same techniques,” senior Nishi Karim said. “It’s really good practice.”
According to Sartanowicz, drawing and painting as an integrated class is not only good for the artistic development of the students, but also an important experience for senior year Advanced Placement art classes. All arts classes come together at the end of senior year to create a student’s AP portfolio.
“You can do the AP portfolio as a drawer or as a ceramicist, or you can do it as a photographer, so all of those classes come together in one class,” Sartanowicz said.
For now, Robinson is enjoying the advantages of the combined class.
“I can express more,” he said, “than if I only had drawing or painting.”
Jason Lammers can be contacted at [email protected].
