Elizabeth Schoyer
Assistant Professor, General Faculty, Studio Art
Personal Website
EmailI teach beginning and advanced drawing. My methods for teaching drawing have evolved to encompass varying materials with the medium now standing more on its own as an art form. Drawing is a language in which line, marks, and space have their formal meaning as well as individual symbolisms that can transform expressions. It provides us with myriad possibilities for constructing images and allowing the student to stumble along into places he or she might not approach in other media. These possibilities leave the student freer and more vulnerable to create a personal vision through a drawing project.
In my own work as an artist, I combine pencil drawing and oil painting washes on canvas. These images relate to explorers of the 1700s and 1800s and their exploitation of various regions of the world. My recent work focuses on the Spanish explorer Jose Celestino Mutis who established the Royal Botanical Expedition in 1783 to study the flora and fauna of South America and Alexander von Humboldt, a German naturalist and explorer whose ideas changed the way we see the natural world.