Honors Art History 113 - Professor Damschroder
As a non-DAAPer, I was nervous to take this course because I had no idea what to expect. I had always heard about how difficult their courses were, but wanted to challenge myself. I’ve always been interested in art ever since I was a child, but my interest peaked my junior year of high school when I took my first AP Art History class. I was eager to attend class every day and couldn’t get enough of the textbook while in the midst of studying.
I was skeptical that Art History 113 was not going to compare to my class in high school, let alone beat it. I had a lot of fun in this course and made many new friends who I probably wouldn’t have encountered otherwise. Professor Damschroder did a fabulous job of making the course interesting and upbeat. She would always tell stories or jokes while teaching, and I found it very intriguing.
Along with the generic quizzes and tests, we were assigned a few projects that were out of my comfort zone. First, we had to pick two artists and create an artwork that reflected both of their styles in art. When we were first assigned this, my heart skipped a beat. I had enough on my plate with all of my other classes, and now I had to be creative? Once I calmed down and thought about the two artists I wanted to choose, the assignment became easier and easier. I chose Edgar Degas and Roy Lichtenstein. These artists being polar opposites, what could go wrong? I originally was going to do an oil painting, but being a perfectionist, that proved to be much too difficult. I chose instead to make a collage of drawings of ballerinas (Degas) in a cartoon/comic book style (Lichtenstein). I was pleased with the final result. (Shown on left).
For the final project, we were assigned to pick one artist that was known to obsess using different medias within the same subject. I found it hard to choose which artist to choose, and all of the easy ones were taken by the time I got around to doing it. I eventually stumbled upon Alexander Calder and found a similarity between all of his works – he is obsessed with animals. Almost all of his artwork was either titled or was a subjective form of an animal. Professor Damschroder wanted us to produce a poster on the computer and print it out. A few of my new friends from DAAP helped me to make a poster, and I was actually pretty proud of it. (Shown below).
This class was more than just a few credits and an Honors Experience to me. It taught me that I need to have more faith in my ideas and to pursue my thoughts without doubts. I enjoyed working with all of the DAAP students and I hope to be able to do it again sometime!
I was skeptical that Art History 113 was not going to compare to my class in high school, let alone beat it. I had a lot of fun in this course and made many new friends who I probably wouldn’t have encountered otherwise. Professor Damschroder did a fabulous job of making the course interesting and upbeat. She would always tell stories or jokes while teaching, and I found it very intriguing.
Along with the generic quizzes and tests, we were assigned a few projects that were out of my comfort zone. First, we had to pick two artists and create an artwork that reflected both of their styles in art. When we were first assigned this, my heart skipped a beat. I had enough on my plate with all of my other classes, and now I had to be creative? Once I calmed down and thought about the two artists I wanted to choose, the assignment became easier and easier. I chose Edgar Degas and Roy Lichtenstein. These artists being polar opposites, what could go wrong? I originally was going to do an oil painting, but being a perfectionist, that proved to be much too difficult. I chose instead to make a collage of drawings of ballerinas (Degas) in a cartoon/comic book style (Lichtenstein). I was pleased with the final result. (Shown on left).
For the final project, we were assigned to pick one artist that was known to obsess using different medias within the same subject. I found it hard to choose which artist to choose, and all of the easy ones were taken by the time I got around to doing it. I eventually stumbled upon Alexander Calder and found a similarity between all of his works – he is obsessed with animals. Almost all of his artwork was either titled or was a subjective form of an animal. Professor Damschroder wanted us to produce a poster on the computer and print it out. A few of my new friends from DAAP helped me to make a poster, and I was actually pretty proud of it. (Shown below).
This class was more than just a few credits and an Honors Experience to me. It taught me that I need to have more faith in my ideas and to pursue my thoughts without doubts. I enjoyed working with all of the DAAP students and I hope to be able to do it again sometime!