Praeterita

I've just started teaching a 10-week Beginning Drawing class. I have taught short workshops in drawing before, but this is the first time I've taught a full semester long class in drawing. In preparing for the class, I had to consider the question: how does one teach drawing? "One must always draw, draw with the eyes, when one cannot draw with a pencil." Balthus My answers, based on my own experience of learning in the classic, traditional manner: 1. Familiarise the students with the materials. 2. Set clear goals for what drawing is and isn't (e.g., not a photograph, though one can strive for realism; mistakes are acceptable;, etc.) 3. Start with simple objects, then work up to more complex objects and groupings. 4. Begin with soft pencil, then graduate to charcoal, conte, coloured pencils and pastels. 5. Give guidance, but don't stifle people's expressiveness. 6. Make most of the guidance about looking, and looking again, at the thing...

I took part in the open studio at the Cornelia Arts Building a few weeks ago. I sold the small clay statue shown in the photo above. But equally satisfying were the conversations I had with the sizeable number of visitors who passed through. Those visitors included a group who brought along their pet conure (a species of parrot). For this open studio, I tried something different. Instead of taping to the wall the standard information about the pieces on display (title, dimensions, price), I made museum-style wall texts that included a story about each painting, print, or sculpture. This didn't lead to any sales of the paintings (yet), but they caught people's attention.