Online Art Classes, how do they fare?

In this age of safety precautions and online classes, art classes must change with the times.

With Covid-19 looming over public education as an ever-present threat, the classes that suffer the most are those that took advantage of hands-on learning and sharing supplies. Art falls under both of those categories. How do you do an art class without being able to work with your students and observe as they progress?

The answer is simple. Sketchbooks. These books allow for the creation of art of all kinds, but with the drawback of the other supplies needing to be purchased by the student. We asked Wesley Bumgarner (’23) in 2-D art how he felt about doing his artwork in a sketchbook as opposed to a series of individual pieces. He said, “well, I mean this is how I draw for fun, so this is pretty much what I’m used to. I didn’t really have an art class here last year, though.”

The main thing to consider when viewing art class through the judgmental lens of an outside observer is that mainstream art class has been around for a much longer than the new art classes. As such, not all the issues have been spotted and identified. However, the quality of learning is debatably unaffected by the crisis.