101 Things to Learn in Art School

by Kit White

Lessons, demonstrations, definitions, and tips on what to expect in art school, what it means to make art, and how to think like an artist. What is the first thing to learn in art school? “Art can be anything.” The second thing? “Learn to draw.” With 101 Things to Learn in Art School , artist and teacher Kit White delivers and develops such lessons, striking an instructive balance between technical advice and sage concepts. These 101 maxims, meditations, and demonstrations offer both a toolkit of ideas for the art student and a set of guiding principles for the artist. Complementing each of the 101 succinct texts is an equally expressive drawing by the artist, often based on a historical or contemporary work of art, offering a visual correlative to the written thought. “Art can be anything” is illustrated by a drawing of Duchamp's famous urinal; a description of chiaroscuro art is illuminated by an image “after Caravaggio”; a lesson on time and media is accompanied by a view of a Jenny Holzer projection; advice about surviving a critique gains resonance from Piero della Francesca's arrow-pierced Saint Sebastian. 101 Things to Learn in Art School offers advice about the issues artists confront across all artistic media, but this is no simple handbook to making art. It is a guide to understanding art as a description of the world we live in, and it is a guide to using art as a medium for thought. And so this book belongs on the reading list of art students, art teachers, and artists, but it also belongs in the library of everyone who cares about art as a way of understanding life.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Education, Reference, Photography, Design, Philosophy

224 pages, Hardcover

First published September 14, 2011

Reviews

[Ahmed Ejaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are many things I tried in life. One of them is drawing. I used to love drawing when I was 9 or 10 years old. I used to draw a lot. But now I don't remember why or how I left drawing. But still I have love for it. Especially for abstract art even though I don't understand it. Once I asked my teacher and he told me that abstract art has different meaning for different person. So I am believing this fact.

Back to the review:
This book is brilliant. Especially for those who want to go to art school. This book will be better for them before going there and will provide basic and different definitions or information regarding art.
This book contains:
A good deal of definitions of art. It also gives us some tips for drawing. Or, maybe, this book can motivate you to draw.

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE
I don't know if you consider this right but I faced this thing while reading:
This book should have been divided into different sections. Like in one point this book tells us about how to draw human body and in next point it tells us a different thing. After few points it tells us that how to draw a human face.
I think the points which are related to the tips for drawing should have a single section. Just like this, the points which are related to colors, definitions of art, importance of art and so on should have their own section. That would be a lot better.

Nevertheless, this book is great. Author has done a good deal of hard work in this book. Really appreciated!


Some Quotes I would like to mention:
Art is a continuing dialogue that stretches back through thousands of years.

An idea is only as good as its execution.

Making art is an act of discovery

If you are dealing only with what you know, you may not be doing your job. When you discover something new, or surprise yourself, you are engaging in the process of discovery.

Art is a form of experimentation. But most experiments fail. Do not be afraid of those failures. Embrace them.

Art is the means by which a culture describes itself to itself.


February 10, 2017

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Missed out on art school because you thought law school seemed less flaky? Well, now you, too, can learn whatever it is art students learn, without ever paying tuition or lugging around a comically large portfolio!

I read this little book while my kids played with a ginormous puzzle in the public library (why does it have to rain the second day of summer vacation?). I pulled it off the shelf because I have a soft spot for small books that tend to get lost on shelves. It was rubberized on the outside, not sure why. I thought the insides would explain that, but did not -- at least, not to me.

101 things! That's it! I did learn things. I learned a few new words: "chiaroscuro" is "the dramatic contrast of dark and light in an image" (think Rembrandt). Some sounded more like "101 things an art professor wishes his students would do because they are driving him crazy." Some are very useful for anyone, artist or not -- #63, "Learn to speak about your work," for example.

The pictures are copies of famousish art by others, drawn by the author. Were the originals not included due to copyright? Maybe that's #102 -- learn copyright law. Maybe law school isn't so useless after all.

[Louise Silk · Rating 4 out of 5]

#4 Art is the product of process.

Whether conceptual, experimental, emotional, or formal, the process you develop yields the image you produce. The materials you choose, the methods of production, and the sources of the images should all reflect the interests that command your attention. The process does not stop with each work completed. It is ongoing. The cumulative result of that process is a body of work.

#28 An idea is only as good as its execution.

It is important that you master your medium. Poorly made work will either ruin a good idea or make the lamentable execution itself the subject. Overly finessed technique can mask a lack of content or can smother an image. At the same time, roughness and imprecision has it's place in rendering. One can only gauge the need to throw technique away if one has first achieved the mastery of it

[Ο σιδεράς]

Art is not self-expression
"it is the self expressing all of the elements of a culture that has shaped it. We filter the ambient information that surrounds us-from our families, from al communities, from the information that bombards us every day from myriad sources. 

We do not create this information: it helps to create us. We in turn start to interpret it and describe it to ourselves and to others as a means to understand it. This is the art impulse. Even works of pure imagination have sources outside of ourselves. Know your sources. 
Όμορφοι, σαφείς και εξυπνοι αφορισμοί  περί τέχνης για όσους ενδιαφέρονται για εναν ακόμα μπούσουλα προσεγγισης, ακόμα ομορφότερα όμως είναι τα μολύβια που τους συνοδεύουν..

https://myartguides.com/exhibitions/l...

[Sadia Mansoor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow.. This is one hell of a great Art book. I mean.. whatever basics you learn in the introductory classes of any Art school is in this book :O

And not just basics, there were many different methods & other Art related important info, which is told by the author in just a few sentences of 101 points. These 101 things are 101 different topics that the author (also formerly an art student & now an art teacher) teaches us, so that we learn the most common things associated to this field.
I liked all the 101 points that were shown. There are many things to learn, for example the human's face is not flat. Its roundish or oval type. (Point to be noted for every portraits making artist). Your studio is not just a work place, its a state of mind & how well lit the room should be where you are making your masterpiece, how colors work differently & the effects they create on people & the painting itself, how art objects work, how people will comment on your work, how to take constructive criticism for your art, etc. I can't state all the points here but all of them were important in their own way.

Art is everything. Art is life. Art can be in the form of painting, coloring, photography, sculpture, media, etc. Art is everywhere & anywhere. Its in our surroundings. If one is interested in creating or judging an art piece, one should know what it takes to form that Art, in order to understand & interpret it well.

This book is highly recommended to all the art students, artists & any person who appreciate Art in any form/sense. :)
Do give it a read. http://wtf.tw/ref/white.pdf

[Ben Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got so much out of this book. The book itself is interesting as an art piece. I learned one of my favorite words in this book: Facture. This book played an important role in helping me to figure out my own personal creative path.

[Alex Gruenenfelder · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great light read for every artist, across all mediums. Many important lessons to be taken from this.

[Andrew Shaffer]

Why is the cover made of rubber? Why are there drawings of famous works of art scattered throughout instead of the art itself? Would a dictionary or glossary of art terms be better organized and more useful for prospective artists? Where are the real art school lessons, like how to shoplift black nail polish? I need these questions answered!

[KW · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kit White's 101 aphoristic tips -- including a few quotations from artists and philosophers such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty -- can be broadly categorised into three types: the philosophy of art-making, basic technical knowledge, and the hermeneutics of art. Those in the first category are at times enlightening (e.g. "Time reveals itself in two critical ways: the unfolding of the form and the experience of the viewer.") and at times platitudinous (e.g. "Clear sight makes clear art."). Those in the second include chiaroscuro, basic perspective drawing, fundamental colour theory, and other essential concepts and techniques. Those in the third are, more often than not, common sense (e.g. "Context determines meaning.").

[Julie Bozza · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting little book, conveying 101 ideas about art and about being an artist - each with a statement, a paragraph, and a drawing. I read it through from cover to cover over a number of days, and anticipate that I'll be going back to browse randomly every now and then.

Some of these things will provide insight to any art-lover, some are broadly applicable to any creative (including those of us who work with words), some went right over my head (for now, at least). Plenty of food for thought!

[kimberly_rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

Each page is sharp and interesting, but too many topics too quickly defined and then dismissed makes for a terrifically tiresome book if read from cover to cover. It's like reading the dictionary: while I enjoy reading from the dictionary (practically every day I'm off to check out a word or phrase!), I wouldn't sit down with it to commence reading from beginning to end. Same with this here bookie--it'd work better as an "idea" book: pick it up, flip to any page and, if it strikes your bliss, use that page as a send off point for further research.

[Francisco Hidalgo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tips interesantes para alguien que quiera darse una idea de las posibilidades de la materia. Para nada lo suficientemente substancial como para crear un impacto duradero. Las ilustraciones del artistas no llegan a un nivel profesional, lo cual pone en duda la practica de sus consejos.
Interesante para una leida.

[Tim Beck · Rating 4 out of 5]

A creative book that translate beyond those wishing to enter art school. I found many parallels to aspects of life and faith.

Art is life.

[Jessica Zu · Rating 4 out of 5]

enigmatic
art is life condensed into an object
religion is life imagined into an icon

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Whether this book will appeal to you or not depends on how much you've read about books and your frame of mind. Each of the 101 ideas are expressed in a page of text and a black and white pencil drawing or sketch generally after a work of art, generally a modern or contemporary work of work. Many of the drawings are not particularly striking. The text accompanying the drawing encapsulates an idea, for example "Eliminate the nonessential" and then provides a brief paragraph expanding or explaining the idea, for example:

Every work of art should contain whatever it needs to fulfill its descriptive objective but nothing more. Look at the "leftover" parts of every composition. Successful images have no dead spaces or inactive parts. Look at your components holistically and make sure that every element advances the purpose of the whole.

This representative text can either strike you as profound and worthy of reflection, as banal or as very incomplete, since it leaves the reader to decide what is a "descriptive objetive", a "leftover" part of a composition, a dead space, an inactive part, and so on. As other reviewers have pointed, this is not a book that rewards reading it through linearly, it is more of a dip into, read a page and reflect on it sort of book, a jumping board, as another Goodreads reviewer puts it. In fact the book can also be read as a set of notes for class classes, the sort of note that, as a teacher, you write on an index card and put on your desk to remind you of the point you are trying to make in a lecture.

My one star evaluation is probably too harsh and perhaps more oriented towards readers who have already absorbed a certain amount of formal art appreciation knowledge --other Goodreads reviews amply show that the book has an important and appreciative audience for whom this is a very insightful book.

[Howard Cincotta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This a wonderful, provocative, easy-to-skim book that could serve as a perfect gift for any student headed to college, whether majoring in art or just planning on taking an art course. Some of the observations are more obvious than others, but all are thought-provoking and worth a youthful nighttime bull session. If nothing else, this volume can help provide a common vocabulary for describing that most elusive of terms, art, whether classical or digital.

Here is lesson number one in full:

Art can be anything. “ It is not defined by medium or the means of its production, but by a collective sense that it belongs to a category of experience we have come to know as ‘art.’”
Other favorites, some more direct and immediately understandable than others:

- Sincerity is a non-value in art
- Complexity derives from the presence of contradiction.
- Work from your intuition, and analyze with your intellect.
- The human face is not flat.
- Admire your forebears, but don’t try to build a career by repeating their discoveries.
- Art is the means by which a culture describes itself to itself.
- Eliminate the nonessential.
- Carry a sketchbook or journal.
- Color is not neutral.
- In all good work, the image and its medium are inseparable.
- All art is political.
- Abstraction comes from the world.
- Learn to draw.

[Mind the Book · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lite Cy Twombly, lite chiaroscuro, lite de Chirico, lite Giacometti... och lite goda råd:

#28. An idea is only as good as its execution. (alltså, "master your medium")
#30. For every hour of making, spend an hour looking and thinking.
#93. Cultivate your idiosyncrasies.
#96. Document your work.
#100. Art is the means by which a culture describes itself to itself.

Eftersom boken är instagramformad återkommer jag där med fler utdrag inom kort.

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this. A bit skewed toward visual art, about painting and color and tones and line value, etc., but some good parallels to writing or other types of arts. Each page has a tip - sometimes brief, sometimes long - and an accompanying visual, usually a sketch by the author of her own version of some piece of art. Quick reading, or longer if you like to linger. Any creative might benefit from a look!

[Texturas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un libro con ideas sobre estética, aspectos técnicos y consejos.

Como curiosidad está bien, siempre es interesante leer sobre la creación artística (este además se lee rápido, con un enunciado y un párrafo de pocas frases por cada una de las 101 ideas).

Personalmente, no estoy de acuerdo con todas las afirmaciones que plantea, y son muy pocas las ideas que realmente me han resultado relevantes o reseñables.

[Turquoise · Rating 4 out of 5]

The drawings are worth the price of admission with this book, the advice is also helpful. I read it in two sittings and plan to go back to it now and again. The author presents helpful considerations and points to keep in mind during one's artistic endeavors and studies.

[Manel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick and easy book that opens your eyes to the many aspects of art. It makes you want to deepen your knowledge of the creative processes behind art and what art is for artists, viewers and society at large. Loved it.

[Courtney Mosier Warren · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s only one thing wrong with this book, it has a really stupid name!
I found this book to be a comforting piece of encouragement towards being creative and living creatively. Many of the lessons it provides I repeat to myself throughout the day.

[Coleman Conner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Art can be found everywhere in life, from a painting, to nature and the creations of the universe.

But Art is more than just creations. It’s a way of thought, and a way to interpret the complex world around us.

[lu (peachairee) · Rating 4 out of 5]

a nice little book!

[Adam Bialek · Rating 1 out of 5]

very shallow, and manages to be both repetitive and all over the place

[Kevin Hodgson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not an artist, nor in artist school, but I found this to be a fascinating look from the outside into the artistic community --

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good idea, but also an effective reminder of why I never wanted to go to art school.

[Ruben Dario Avila Home · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hermoso compendio para un estudiante de artes, recomendado si estas en la ruta de ser un artista.

[Iain Every · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyable read, accompanied by delightful and inspiring sketches. The booked aided my exploration of art and helped my understanding of the concepts artists talk about.

[Aaron Schumacher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this little coffee table book at the MIT Press Bookstore a while ago. It's cute. Some good stuff in there. I'm a sucker for this kind of format recently.