Jen,

Being an artist myself I see where you are coming from, I really do. Art for a lot of people is so secondary and is why we are losing the fight in the public schools. Art is very important in my life and though I don't expect my child to have the passion and skills I do; I do expect that she will appreciate it and that is all I ask. She does show abilities even at the young age of 2 but if that doesn't come to fruition I am fine with it but I will expect her to have the fundamentals. Fundamentals seems to be the problem here for you and the teacher because art is subjective and she sounds like the type of teacher that demands coloring in the lines. You son already shows an appreciation with his digital and part of the problem is he has skipped some of the basic steps to get to the point. He is already in a specialty that he has passion for and his class is like a 2d design class ... lots of basic boring things.

The famous IF I was in your shoes ... how would I tackle the teacher? It really is a hard one for me b/c I am like you ... forcing the basics can stifle the child and risk their love of it all together. I have seen it happen so many times before. Beautiful free form art gives way to discipline and structure and you are left with no whimsy that made that art brilliant to begin with. Some ideas:

1. talk to your son and find out why he doesn't want to do the work...
2. Make a project at home utilizing his love of digital that incorporates the fundamentals she is trying to teach
3. Hold the digital work as a reward for when he works on the assignment and brings home proof of it.
4. Consider the environment you have him in ... if you can't come to an agreement with her and your reasoning is for him to appreciate art ... you might want to consider that you and your DH have the ability to provide him with that and he just might not need to be in that school. (Of course this is going off of two emails and I do not have the big picture by any means.)

Also feel free to PM me at any time ... artist have to stick together!