Friday, January 28th, 2011
There are times when we are shown just how much we do or don’t know, about communication, and about the learning process itself. Today’s class was one of those times.
Today we covering how to draw circles, ellipses, and how to find and utilize their centers in perspective drawings. They were jazzed about it. After a brief explanation of how it works and the observation and thought processes involved, we dove into an ellipsis-rich still life. I forgot to recap our previous lessons, which we about contour drawing and learning to see. I did so when one student expressed frustration at trying to sort out the drawing staring with horizon lines, vanishing points, and perspective construction lines.
Whoops.
So a brief recap: We use contour drawing to see and translate to paper, we use perspective lines to check and tighten. And thus, it clicked. I also showed her how to check proportions using a pencil. Now we were getting somewhere! She wanted to try the demonstration I did and at different planar angles. By all means, do! She said this helped and recommended I work that into the lesson. Feedback! I thanked her profusely while jotting teacher notes.
Most of the way through the first drawing, they began to feel comfortable enough to ask me questions about the course itself, and express that they had had other hopes and expectations. Oh, and they wanted to leap ahead! They wanted reading assignments! Great! Can do! Their goals? One wants to do personification of inanimate objects and facial expressions. The other wants to learn figure proportions, foreshortening, and shading/modeling.
Soooo… I can teach all of that. And I will. It now means that I will be teaching two classes simultaneously (I think I’ll ask if they’d like to split off, but they’re having such fun together, we’ll see). This is good. I wanted to teach both of these subjects anyway! I need to come up with something fun for figure drawing, but I already know what to throw at the other lady. Disney’s Flour Sack exercises and another lesson I’d designed for a cartooning class.
I don’t have the same bubbly, giddy feeling I had after the first two classes, but I am happy and I welcome the feedback. I’m glad they didn’t wait any longer! I’ll be spending the weekend pondering how to rework the the schedule and topics. Should be fun!
As for not, off to the home of friends’ to KNIT!
Tags: Sketch