Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts

Monday, February 10, 2014

Teaching Drawing - In the Snow

It is hard to teach a drawing class this winter. The bad weather just keeps coming! I think in January I had one complete class!

The standing policy of the Renaissance Art Gallery is that when Cabel County school are close due to bad weather, there are no classes at the gallery. Usually that means the road are bad, and because I draw students from around the Tri-state area, it simply is not safe enough.

This past January, schools have been closed a lot! Some of my students have only been to 4 days of classes since the year began! This also effect the ability of my adult students, some of whom are grandmas, and have to babysit if school is called off.

It has been very frustrating for both me and my students. They have projects they want to get on with.

Last week school was called off not because of snow, but of extreme cold. I needed to be in the gallery anyway to help prepare for a lobby show of gallery work in the Renaissance Center. We did a pre-show walk through for the opening of the play, "12 Angry Men" being given the first two weekends in February. So I let my students decide for themselves if they wanted to come in.

The Lobby show turned out rather well, and we are all geared up for the year.

Well this week, we were able to have classes. But it rained, snowed and the temperatures were all over the place! Those that made it in did enjoy themselves and really felt it was worth the trip!

February should be a better month, but none of us are counting on it. Last two months we have worked a lot in colored pencil and with the color wheel. In the coming months we will revert to working with graphite. In all its forms! And experimenting with different surface and treatments.

Back to basics!

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Teaching


I teach drawing

I love drawing

But unlike what some people believe, it is not easy

It takes practice

Skill
Learning
Observation

Practice

Lots and lots of practice

You learn to draw by drawing.

Everything

Everyday if you can

I teach drawing
To adults
Children
People

They believe in me
I tell them I can teach them to draw and they believe me

They have trouble with their drawings

“ I just want tear it up”
“I am going to start over”

No, I say, we will work on it

“tell me what is wrong”

They believe that I can, I have told them I can. What a sales pitch, what am I going to do?

But then I look

Think
Observe

And we work on them.

They can be saved.

They will not be the best drawings, but they are working drawings and they are learning drawings.

And they learn

With each drawing, they learn

And they get better,

But the real secret is that with each of their drawings I get better.

I learn to see more clearly.

I have to know what to do. So I have to think

Art happens in the brain.

It is a problem to be solved but it has infinite solutions

I come up with the answer from somewhere, from never land, from ever land from that infinitely that lives within the finite brain.

They expect me to know so I do.

That is its true beauty

All the answers to unasked questions!

Art is beautiful simply because it is art.