For those of you fortunate enough to have another semester or two on campus, I’d like to impart one final piece of wisdom—take Dr. Cottrell’s “ART 105Q- Drawing and Painting I” course. Not only does this amazing course count for an INQ credit, but also it’s taught by one of the professors who has most positively influenced my growth at Oxford. I emailed Dr. Cottrell the semester before fall registration and expressed my concerns about not being “talented” enough to take a college-level studio art class, she dismissed my worries and encouraged me to take the course. I arrived to the studio on the first day of class and couldn’t have been more anxious; my previous studio art experiences in middle and high school were anything but positive. Dr. Cottrell introduced herself and elaborated on her expectations for our artistic development and firmly promised to fail anyone who ever used the word “pretty” to describe art.
ART 105Q is an introduction to studio art and thus is structured to build student confidence and skill before the most time-intensive projects are assigned. My favorite project was dubbed the “Project from Hell” because of it’s misleadingly simple task to reproduce the color wheel using acrylic paints but without and visible brushstrokes. While a laboring and frustrating process, the time spent working with acrylics for the color wheel allowed me to have better control of the medium and to be more confident. The project I am most proud of to date was an abstract painting of three selves— representative of the self we show to the world, the self we show to close family and friends, and the self we show to no one and take to the grave with us.
I strongly recommend everyone to take ART 105Q! It has been one of the most rewardingly challenging courses I have taken to date.