That time of year

Spring is in the air right now- winter may finally be over.  And that means the end of the spring semester at college.  Unfortunately, that means extra work, as grading adds all kinds of things that have to be done on a deadline.  At my university, I have two sections of Intro going right now, 34 students total, and just 2 weeks to go.  That means just two more meetings, just two more long days, long early morning drives.  I like that part.  But it also means a lot has to get done in those two weeks.

For example, I devoted part of today to grading the recent 2D final, and shared information with students regarding the current 3D final, and trying to get some to finally turn in their research assignments, which I hope to all have graded by this Friday.  But my biggest task today was working on a student art exercise, their collagraph project.   I always try to have at least one print project in every studio class I teach, and with the Intro class that takes the form of a collagraph.  I have the materials, it's not too difficult for inexperienced students, and results are not too bad.  Plates were made in class a while back, and I brought ink and tools to class a few weeks ago so students could get them printed during class.  Of course, students being students, some had not completed their plates, some had forgotten them, some didn't show up...you get the idea.  But prints are important to me, and it's the one thing they really can't finish on their own, so if they can get me the plate by a certain point, I'll just take them to my Studio and print them there.  More efficient than bringing all the printing stuff each week.

So today I had 7 such prints to take care of.  Above is a photo of the resulting prints.  The students will have the option of adding color to the dry prints (used water based ink, so they will be dry when they get them back), but even in this form they have their charms.  This usually ends up being one of the things they do and actually choose to save at the end of the semester.  And I had at least one student last week who asked me for more of the material we used to make the plates, so maybe I'll get more of these to do this coming week.  If they don't get them to me by then, they are on their own.