Today I was introduced to some of the 4th year nihon-ga students. Myself, sensei, and a few of my Tues. classmates went over to their studio to see their work and be introduced. I'm always the star of the show in these situations as I stick out and everyone is very curious about me. I flubbed my own introduction a bit when I reverted to english to say I enjoyed japanese painting. Muraoka-sensei jumped in after to explain how I was studying art education, and I got the expected wide-eyed oooo's.
It was a great experience to see more art, as up until now I hadn't seen too many examples of work in progress, or more contemporary japanese painting. The freshman class I'm in is simple still-life, while the sophmores tend to be very traditional in their trees/blossoms/flower paintings. It's like anything else, a build-up beginning with technical ability, and the seniors have more freedom with style and technique. Their current assignments were self-portraits, and they were interesting to see. These were not abstract self-portraits, and all of them were working from drawings they had done of themselves. What made them different were the colors and brush style. A few were using muted colors, but mostly bright, lively textures like the closeup of an impressionist painting. Another student had done a detailed still-life vines and nature, as a more traditional subject, but then painted all over it with broad colorful marks. I wish I had had the vocabulary to talk about obscuring the image, transformation, meaning, or anything at all like the feedback and discussion between artists. That's what I'm missing the most here, meaningful critiques and being interactive in a creative community.
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