first day of classes

Wow, I have been here for ten days now, and classes finally have started today. It feels good to be here for a purpose! I was automatically signed up for a six-credit painting class because I am a painting major here, but for any other classes it was up to me to wait for the day of the class and ask permission of the instructors.

The class I really wanted to get into was a combination writing and illustrating class for children's picture books. Luckily, I was able to get in, and since it's a six credit class as well, I now have a full schedule. Today in the class we drew a story without words, with six pages. It was really good for learning about pacing. One of the instructors works for Houghton Mifflin, the publishing company (not sure in what capacity really as I missed her introduction). At the end of the semester some editors of publishing houses will be coming to critique our final book projects. This is exciting. Our instructor showed us some books of students who were once students in this class, so it is good to know that this class seems to be quite a good preparation for getting books published.

The illustration department has its own building, it is the brick building on the right:



I found out some interesting disctinctions between painting in the painting department and painting for illustration at RISD by talking to some students this morning. The painting department is all about experimentation and doing abstracts and whatever you want, whereas the painting in the Illustration department is about being trained to paint, gaining skill, and I suppose really learning how to paint figures and objects. This distinction is not made at Emily Carr, but might be good, as I know some people, including myself, just want to gain some skill sometimes. But I also love the experimentation and free expression side of painting, so I am really happy to be in the painting department here.

Last night a group of exchange students and I went to the welcoming party for grad students. There are about 500 grad students here. There was dj and food and wine and such. I went into the small gallery and checked out some of the grad student work. This is a painting, about 6' x 6', oil on canvas. Its done by David Baf, MFA 2008. I liked it, overall I thought it was pretty good, although I can't say I'm a big fan of the lips, it's like the painter wanted to ensure that the viewer knew he had some skill.