29 August 2008

could a blog replace the sketchbook?

i figure i spend a good 20% of my time either searching for papers my students have given me because they lost track of their sketchbook, harassing kids about work they owe me, or lugging big black sketchbooks from room to room. so i'm considering having my oil painting students each keep a blog this term.

in some courses this just wouldn't do. when i teach mixed media, for instance, they need to be able to feel the materials, make a mess, and build layers of stuff. i love that broken binding, smelly, stuff-falling-out-of-it kind of sketchbook.

but in oil painting they fill their books, or work on separate sheets of paper, to make thumbnail sketches, take notes, and write either reflections on their own progress or responses to famous paintings. if they did this in a blog it would remain forever...present and accessible (as opposed to wrinkled or lost), chronological, and organized. and the students could comment on each others' postings as a way of having a conversation about their work. we could even dump the whole blog into book form using blurb at the end of the course.

what do you think?

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