The best-case scenario is always drawing figures from life but, if you have nobody to model for you, this website offers a fairly viable alternative.
RE: Grade Inflation
If you got A’s in two studio classes and you KNOW the work you did in one of those classes is significantly stronger than the other, you just might be a victim of grade inflation. Why do I say victim? Because instead of actually bothering to challenge you and help you get better, your program is just doing the easiest thing for them which is to make students happy and get them out the door.
Where does that leave you? Probably with a bunch of work you think is really strong and no job/show prospects in the foreseeable future …
RE: Artistic Integrity
The WORST thing an artist can do is make work and THEN decide what it is about. It is very obvious when a person is trying to make sub par work relevant/interesting by namedropping and likening it to art concepts and philosophies after-the-fact.
When artist, Steve Locke, is doing studio visits and is asked to provide students with a text that is/was influential to him, he uses this:
Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin
Let’s learn about the new casualists together!
What I wish I could say to people who show bad work in crits and then try to defend it.
Pseudo-conceptual art school critique babble
“When is a sculpture, an installation, a photograph or a building really a painting?”
How (Not) to apply for art school