So… how to begin describing Monday’s studio session? First clue: bring in an object of medium size. Second clue: place it on a table with the objects of your fellow students, creating a nice composition for you to draw. Third clue: Yes we’re drawing still life and no we’re not in Year 8 art class.

Honestly I’m not sure what to say or how to say it nicely. During the four hours of our studio sessions we were asked to draw the still life from different perspectives in different ways (without looking, continous line, etc…) although they didn’t seem to be different from one another, most of us were confused and unsure of what we were doing and why. We weren’t told why we were doing this or what was its purpose neither at the beginning of the class nor at the end. So, most of us left the way we came in, not knowing anything new.

Actually, annoyed. Annoyed that we had just spent four hours drawing perspective in the last term of our second year when if we were to do these exercises it probably should have been during the beginning of first year. It felt like they had suddenly realised that our drawing skills were ‘t good enough maybe and that a few exercises would do the trick. Well it’s a little too late. By now we should be looking at the future, how to put our work out there, what jobs are out there for illustrators, we should be pushed to enter competitions, we should be told where we can put up our work for free, where to sell our work, etc etc…

Honestly it felt like a bit of a joke, and this is not a personal opinion, it was a general wconcern that at this point in this very expensive course this is what we were doing and that we left the class that day not knowing anything new. Specially when it was really pushed on us how important it was for us to take photos of all of this work and ***PUT IT ON OUR BLOGS*** … Thats what we took away from that session. How are we expected to take these lessons seriously if the lessons aren’t even serious? Is this work that is building our portfolio? I don’t think so.

It is very disappointing to feel that at this point we, as students, are not being taken seriously, that our future isn’t being taken seriously. I would expect our tutors and lessons to be helping us individually figure out what kind of route we can take in this profession, help us figure out our strong points and develop them. We would like real help to develop ourselves as future professionals of illustration.