An art-filled semester!
AE 103 drawing
For my very first semester at UVic I took 6 different art courses as my electives as an Anthropology student.
I highly enjoyed the experience of only taking the “fun” electives as opposed to doing more academic courses in high school.
It did allow me to think about whether taking classes that expect creativity over more science-y or calculative skills would be more challenging or not, as I found the classes I took required more time to think about each assignment and create pieces from scratch.
My Fall 22′ classes included:
- AE 103 Intro to art education
- AE 311 Design thinking
- AE 322 Digital arts
- AE 306 Painting
- ART 150 Intro to contemporary art theory, practice and criticism
- ART 141 Intro to contemporary photography
AE 103 printmaking
My favourite class was AE 306 Painting with Dr. Alison Shields. We did a variety of simple exercises that can be expanded depending on your comfort with painting so it is a perfect course for beginners.
We explored different painting styles such as abstraction, still life and surrealism, embedded with exercises to practice those styles.
Many think AE (art education) courses are about teaching art but I found out they are simply art studio classes that are similar to ART courses. Despite the name “Intro to art education” for AE 103, the course focused on exploring different mediums so it reminded me of a high school art class where we created a variety of pieces. In AE 103 we created collages and explored drawing, pastel, printmaking and more.
AE 306 exercise
ART 141 with Emily Geen is a perfect course to learn photography even if you have zero experience since it is an introductory course that covers a wide range of techniques to start. It is still a great course for experienced photographers as we often critiqued each other’s work which helped everyone learn a lot!
The assignments often had a lot of flexibility for creativity as well. I would recommend this course to balance out your semester as an elective since it is less heavy in terms of work while allowing you to learn lots by seeing everyone’s work and practicing using a film or digital camera!
AE 311 Design Thinking is also a great course that combines branding and design. We were able to create prototypes of a product idea we designed as well as designed menus and book covers for the mini projects so it is a great course for students interested in product design or graphic design.
Overall, I had a lot of fun exploring different types of art this semester and solely focusing in the art realm. Sometimes we just need a break from super academic subjects and do something we enjoy or explore new interests as well!
AE 306 my favourite painting I made !
AE 311 menu design!
ART 141
