The harshest thing an art teacher has ever said to you?

[SakuraMitsuki89]

I've always been drawing and in middle school I got into anime/manga (which seems to be a sensitive topic for many artists it seems, looking at all these other posts, eheh). At some point, (memory fails me) either while I was doodling something or working on an assignment, my teacher got into a discussion with my best friend and I. I can't remember how it came up, but at some point he practically yelled how (anime/manga) was a real shitty style.

I know he didn't look at it fondly because it's not respected like fine art, and it's not like I put my hopes into wanting to pursue an occupation where I would draw like that. Honestly, that's just how I doodled for fun. But, it still left me pretty shaken up and bothered, aha.

I can really respect a critique that is constructive and helpful, but if they jsut say it's bad or doesn't look good enough, that's no help at all.

[CatTheSwordsman]

I don't think it's 'tough love'. Destroying people's artwork and telling them they're never be any good is AWFUL, abusive, and I sincerely hope those teachers get fired. Positive reinforcement has been proven, through multiple studies, to work better than negative reinforcement. And no one deserves to be told their work is terrible and they'll never get better.

Art is a learning process that is constant and never stops, and even if it wasn't, abusive behavior is abusive behavior and no one deserves to endure teachers like those mentioned in this thread. Critique is one thing- but critique means giving helpful advice, not yelling at people, and it doesn't mean only focusing on the bad.

Everyone starts someplace, and people GO to art school to LEARN, not because they already know what they're doing. Teachers should TEACH, which means acknowledging how they're improving, giving advice on how to continue, and remembering that everyone has their own style and they shouldn't get angry if it doesn't look exactly like the teacher wants. Teachers who yell, insult, or give "tough love" are being abusive and are not fit to teach. No one deserves to endure abuse in order to be respected at their craft. No one deserves to endure abuse at all.

(Of course, I'm not addressing everyone on the thread, just the ones that mentioned teachers who did awful things.)

(Also the teacher who said that anime/manga is a shitty style is kinda being racist, considering the style orginates from Japan and is almost exclusively made there.)

[cutie pie awry]

SakuraMitsuki89

I've always been drawing and in middle school I got into anime/manga (which seems to be a sensitive topic for many artists it seems, looking at all these other posts, eheh). At some point, (memory fails me) either while I was doodling something or working on an assignment, my teacher got into a discussion with my best friend and I. I can't remember how it came up, but at some point he practically yelled how (anime/manga) was a real shitty style.

I know he didn't look at it fondly because it's not respected like fine art, and it's not like I put my hopes into wanting to pursue an occupation where I would draw like that. Honestly, that's just how I doodled for fun. But, it still left me pretty shaken up and bothered, aha.

I can really respect a critique that is constructive and helpful, but if they jsut say it's bad or doesn't look good enough, that's no help at all.

Ugh, yikes, I had a college professor who felt the same way. It was frustrating, because he would ask for us to doodle in a journal and would check it every two weeks, and would constantly criticize that style right in front of me. He called it 'Sailor Moon-y' - it was hilarious to hear him say that all the time lol, but it got uncomfortable real fast when directed at my sketches of all things, not even the stuff I had to turn in!

He always had us doing still life. I liked doing it a lot, which was lucky for me, because so did he. But there were a lot of people in the class who struggled with it, and, according to him, "didn't meet his expectations." It was awkward because he was the professor who picked favorites and spent a lot of time with the students who shared his style. It made critique days so cringe worthy lol.

I remember that our last project was a booklet where we could draw anything of our choosing, and some students wanted to make a manga. He seriously stopped class to go on a tirade about it! I was taught in so many art courses that all styles are a form of "art" and should be appreciated, and as long as you were proud of your piece (awful or no,) you were making good steps. He definitely made me second guess a lot of that thinking, which really sucked.

[Chu Fizz]

CatTheSwordsman

I don't think it's 'tough love'. Destroying people's artwork and telling them they're never be any good is AWFUL, abusive, and I sincerely hope those teachers get fired. Positive reinforcement has been proven, through multiple studies, to work better than negative reinforcement. And no one deserves to be told their work is terrible and they'll never get better.

Art is a learning process that is constant and never stops, and even if it wasn't, abusive behavior is abusive behavior and no one deserves to endure teachers like those mentioned in this thread. Critique is one thing- but critique means giving helpful advice, not yelling at people, and it doesn't mean only focusing on the bad.

Everyone starts someplace, and people GO to art school to LEARN, not because they already know what they're doing. Teachers should TEACH, which means acknowledging how they're improving, giving advice on how to continue, and remembering that everyone has their own style and they shouldn't get angry if it doesn't look exactly like the teacher wants. Teachers who yell, insult, or give "tough love" are being abusive and are not fit to teach. No one deserves to endure abuse in order to be respected at their craft. No one deserves to endure abuse at all.

(Of course, I'm not addressing everyone on the thread, just the ones that mentioned teachers who did awful things.)

(Also the teacher who said that anime/manga is a shitty style is kinda being racist, considering the style orginates from Japan and is almost exclusively made there.)

I agree entirely.

[BigGayFish]

I must be really lucky that the only criticism I've received were constructive and fair ones. Must be because I've only taken 2 art classes in my life (a watercolor class and a mixed media class) and I'm mainly self taught??? My harshest critique will always be myself tho.

I can tell you what the harshest/cruelest thing an "art" teacher has DONE to me tho. (Architecture's still art right?)

First thing you need to know is that my high school had "majors" like a college due to the fact that 1) we were a college prep school and 2) we had over 4,000 kids so we had decent fundings for the classes. It's also one of the few high schools in Chicago that actually teaches you architecture. And as any gender studies shows us, it's mainly filled with guys.

Like, a lot of guys.

In my freshman year it was pretty even, 50/50. But after that, at most, there's only 10 girls to the 20 some other boys. Last year, my senior year, I was the ONLY female in my class of 35 kids. And our classes were 50 minutes long. As such I had the reputation of a grade-A b***h and anti social anime freak. I had to be if I were to endure the rape, misogynistic, homophobic, and downright racist jokes that they liked to throw around. An irony since there was only 5 white guys, 2 openly gay kids, and me, a DFAB teen who endured sexual abuse as a kid.

But that's not the point. My teacher, a normally chill and accepting teacher, liked to spring on us projects with extremely tight deadlines. This mainly was because my classroom was full of slackers who rather have homoerotic tensions with each other than work. It was also because it would help convey to us what it was like to work on a "real project". This time though, his impromptu project was too difficult for even our most studious student, a kid named Eric who rendered buildings so beautifully that it was unanimously agreed that he sold his soul to the devil.

What was the project? To research, design, and build a physical and 3D model of a sustainable, independent, and functioning city on Lake Michigan. In one week. Yes, one week. What normally takes months of planning, researching, building and designing we had to do in 5 days. 7 if you count the weekend. And it counted for 40% of our final grade.

Along with general designs and research, I was tasked with building the physical model seeing as I was the best. But I couldn't do it until we had our final design agreed by the group. I was sadly stuck with 2 incompetents and one who could actually work but was sick most of the days meaning the final design wasn't completed by Thursday giving me approximately 24 hours to gather materials and construct a city for Friday evening the next day.

I did it in 12. I did not sleep. I did not eat. I burned, cut, glued, and bruised my fingers making my "little" city. (I say little sarcastically because it was the size of my table or a young child.) And all of this was with my mother and sister helping me. When I went into class that day my model was literally the best one there was. I set it right next to a globe of styrofoam and duct tape that looked like it could pass as a city if it came from the mind of a 5 year old.

After that I promptly went to my first period (band) and tried not to fall asleep in my classes until 7th period. Since it was the last day before winter vacation our schedule was all wonky and I ended up eating an extremely late lunch with most of my friends. Since it was my senior year, we were talking about college applications and since I was working on zero sleep I belatedly realized I needed to talk to my counselor about my ACT scores, college applications, and the FAFSA. Since I had to fill out so many forms I was going to miss my class and my really important PowerPoint presentation for the project. So I walked into the classroom, already uber frazzled, and asked Mr. Berlanga if it was ok that my group went last please, please, please I need to talk to my counselor.

And that's when I got the worst (best???) news ever. That my teacher purposely lied about the deadline to force us to work and that we had all of winter break (2 weeks) and then some, to work on the project. Meaning that me building an entire city from scratch in a day was completely pointless. I cried guys. I cried A LOT. I had a full blown out panic and asthma attack and I just walked out of class and school then and there. My friends were luckily there to calm me down.

But hey, at least I got 50 extra points out of 500 right?

[Nordic_Bjork]

"You have to change your art style"

stressed

[Sweet Murderer]

The harshest thing I've heard about my own work was not from my teachers, but a friend.
I could show her a drawing and she wouldn't understand what it was meant to be.
I drew a human and she saw a sheep.
Infuriating haha.

[Shadowolf]

Hmm. I don't think I've ever gotten criticism that was overly too harsh from a teacher... I have from a classmate before, haha. But from a teacher, I've certainly gotten my share of bluntly harsh and honest feedback, but I always felt they were fair enough assessments. Sometimes I rushed drawings because of a lack of time juggling between other classes (or having gotten lazy every while, haha... happens)... sometimes, I just wasn't good in a certain area at the time.
I can certainly think up a few times where I felt a teacher was being a bit unfair on another student though (one memory comes to mind but that one I'd rather keep to myself). There's been other times where the student bought something in that I felt "deserved" getting ripped apart... I can remember one occasion where a student bought a storytelling illustration of stick figures. My teacher still critiqued it with all regards to the assignment, then finally said, "I hate to ask, but do you even like drawing?"

[Shadowolf]

Neil_Whitehorn

i knew a dude, straight out of highschool he was had a good head on his shoulders

he wasn't childish or immature or egotistical or anything like that and was taking his work seriously

its just that he had an unrealistic expectation of art in general i guess

most people that become good have been drawing stuff their entire lives

this kid never drew anything before in his life he honestly believed that you just go to an art school and just being at an art school will magically make you amazing

as i said, unrealistic expectation

so naturally he was one of the weaker students in that school and the professor told him essentially that he sucks and that he should just quit art

but he really liked art and he did have a good head on his shoulders its just that he had an unrealistic idea of how developing these art skills tends to go so he stuck with it right even though he got kicked out of the school cause he sucked, and the professor told him that he sucked and that he should quit art

and even though he isnt the most amazing artist ive ever seen in my entire life his work is pretty good

check him out now http://www.juliennema.com/

I think that's some phenomenal art! Glad to see he kept it up, great stuff.
I also really like the simplicity of the website layout. Might be a good source of inspiration as I finally start to make my website over the month.

[Murkytea]

Neil_Whitehorn

was this person werner?

Zimmermann? That guy is the most amaze s**t ever!!

One of my instructors asked me how I got accepted into such a high ranking program when he came to critique my work. We’re good friends now that I’m no longer his student.. XP

[Neil_Whitehorn]

Created From Snow

Neil_Whitehorn

was this person werner?

Zimmermann? That guy is the most amaze s**t ever!!

One of my instructors asked me how I got accepted into such a high ranking program when he came to critique my work. We’re good friends now that I’m no longer his student.. XP

yeah zimmermann

"your pelvis sucks"
"you make baby jesus cry"
"that's pretty good, if your in kindegarden"

lol xd

[Gray Flashbacks]

I didn't listen to my art teacher because I've drawn for over five years, seriously,
and nothing my art teacher ever taught was worth listening to.
She apparently had this great skill but she never actually taught it.

Me and my friend were the only two in the class that actually took art seriously,
and her class pet was a girl who took a picture of a mushroom.
Ye, I couldn't take her seriously.

[edit] The harshest thing my art teacher ever said about me wasn't said to my face, the coward.

She said I was a bad influence on my friend, encouraging her not to take the assignments seriously.
We didn't follow the rules, and our art was better for it.

I didn't influence her, she agreed fullheartedly that it was stupid.
The class was basically an extra to keep us busy for that extra hour of school anyway. lol

[Gray Flashbacks]

CatTheSwordsman

I don't think it's 'tough love'. Destroying people's artwork and telling them they're never be any good is AWFUL, abusive, and I sincerely hope those teachers get fired. Positive reinforcement has been proven, through multiple studies, to work better than negative reinforcement. And no one deserves to be told their work is terrible and they'll never get better.

Art is a learning process that is constant and never stops, and even if it wasn't, abusive behavior is abusive behavior and no one deserves to endure teachers like those mentioned in this thread. Critique is one thing- but critique means giving helpful advice, not yelling at people, and it doesn't mean only focusing on the bad.

Everyone starts someplace, and people GO to art school to LEARN, not because they already know what they're doing. Teachers should TEACH, which means acknowledging how they're improving, giving advice on how to continue, and remembering that everyone has their own style and they shouldn't get angry if it doesn't look exactly like the teacher wants. Teachers who yell, insult, or give "tough love" are being abusive and are not fit to teach. No one deserves to endure abuse in order to be respected at their craft. No one deserves to endure abuse at all.

(Of course, I'm not addressing everyone on the thread, just the ones that mentioned teachers who did awful things.)

(Also the teacher who said that anime/manga is a shitty style is kinda being racist, considering the style orginates from Japan and is almost exclusively made there.)

I agree that it's a practice that should be stopped-- like now.

Whenever I've sat down with someone and tried to teach them some basics of art
I've never looked at their work, shook my head, and said "no, no. It's awful."
Because that's not how you get people to want to learn. lol

[Murkytea]

Neil_Whitehorn

Created From Snow

Neil_Whitehorn

was this person werner?

Zimmermann? That guy is the most amaze s**t ever!!

One of my instructors asked me how I got accepted into such a high ranking program when he came to critique my work. We’re good friends now that I’m no longer his student.. XP

yeah zimmermann

"your pelvis sucks"
"you make baby jesus cry"
"that's pretty good, if your in kindegarden"

lol xd

I’ve heard that he can be quite mean in his life drawing classes. I’ve never had him officially for life drawing, but I have poped in on a few of his classes. He’s always so nice to me. Always nagging me about my line weight, but says it nicely! I know one girl ran out crying once from him, but all he said was “try again”.
All the people I know that he’s taught in his children’s illustration class think he’s such a sweet guy too. I’m enrolled in that one so I’ll see for sure.

[Basoni]

this is so tempting