Friday classes

In today's (21st november) Painting class, we critiqued the 20 paintings project. This is like the 3rd critique we've done this semester. The students were asked to lay down their paintings on the floor and present them to the students. A set of questionnaire was written on the blackboard.

• Which is your first one?
• Point out your most recent one.
• How long did each take you?
• Which one did you find most difficult?
• Which one were you most interested in?

This was going to make talking about the paintings a little easier. I thought it was a valid starting point.

We went through a bunch of people, among whom were some who had completed their paintings just the night before. That's when David Joron realized he should have told us to hand in 5 every week instead of leaving all for the last day. LOL. Even though Mark hadn't finished all 20, there were some I really liked. These lemon paintings for instance.. I asked mark if it was ok for me to use it here, and he said yes. So these photos are property of Mark Finnigan. (Just to save my ass)

Just before we were about to talk about my paintings, it was break time. Sigh.. anyway. Just then, David Joron comes up to me and says, "I'm honoured to be quoted on your blog." This took me by surprise, although it shouldn't have, because such stuff has happened in the past. But not regarding any teacher as far as I remember. So, he said he was googling his name because he wanted to see if people are talking about his show, and he stumbled across my blog. God! I had totally forgotten about his show! My previous teacher Sybil was also in that show. Oh well, I was too swamped with stuff to do this week.

Ahem.. so, when we talked about my paintings, I think I talked a great deal and was taking up much more time than anyone else. But I was happy to get all the feedback I was getting. Specially when its about work I think I didn't do well with. Like my chair painting. I said it was a disappointment, but the teacher said it was well done. I like to delve deeper into why I was so disappointed with it now, when I know there was a point when I liked that painting... I had done that painting a couple of weeks ago. And I remember how the chair looked in front of me. I was really struggling with trying to get the right colors for the reflection because again, the room wasn't very well lit. So I guess when I finished it, I felt a sense of achievement and felt happy with it. But later, when I had done some more advanced stuff and improved, I didn't think that painting was any good..weird?

Well, after painting, we went to photography where we watched a documentary called 'manufactured landscapes' It's a documentary about a canadian photographer who takes photos of mines and such man made landscapes. I didn't find it too interesting for the first 4-5 minutes. But then the idea gripped me. That's when I decided to do the photoraphy portfolio on pictures from India. Not terribly poor india, not terribly rich and glamorous side of india, regilar middle class stuff I've done, places I've been etc. I took out a bunch of photos from my hometown Akola, Seoni, Pune and Mumbai. I asked people to go through them and help me shortlist 15 photos max. I guess I got a decent response and I will be able to pick out photos much easier.