Lord have mercy, you would think I asked the kids to clean their rooms there was so much whining going on when I gave out instructions!
Seriously.
They gave my own teen hooligans, who whine with the best of them when asked to unload the dishwasher, a good run for their money.
They hated, and when I say hated, I mean HATED, the idea of giving up control completely of their sight while drawing.
I had punched a hole in the middle of a paper plate, so even if they wanted too, it was almost impossible to peek and then put a sharpie marker in it so they would not be able to "correct" their lines when finished.
Grounds for torture as far as each and everyone of them was concerned.
But I was as determined for them to experience this project as they were determined to let me know how cruel tonight's form of torture pained them.
I have raised three children to adulthood, did they seriously think I have not developed mad skills at this point to persevere through mass amounts of whining?!
So onwards we marched, paper plates in hand into the horrible world of blind contour drawing.
Each child did several drawings.
There was lots of laughter as they looked at how each one turned out.
There was even talk about how in the world Dali became famous by working like this!!!
But after thirty minutes of listening to me chant, "Let go and just enjoy the process", they did start to enjoy it.
We did portraits, butterflies, cats, and flowers and then they each picked their favorite one to paint.
12 year old, "sea star and anemone" watercolor
This student has three of these drawings of different compositions of her sea star. Although she only painted one, I sent her home with the other two in hopes that she would complete it as I think it would make a really nice series hanging together.
However that being said, she did mention this was "drawer work". Her polite way of letting me know this would not EVER see the light of day when others were viewing her work.
Which is quite OK. As artist we do not have to like every exploration we take on this adventure, but just embrace the new experience and file it away in our resources of tools.
When painting, I asked her to use a different value or different color for each new shape created in her contour drawing. I loved how her work came out and I'm sure it will look quite nice even if it is never more than shelf paper in her drawer!
12 year old, "Chocolate the cat" marker on bristol
If I didn't think the first student was pained by this process, this particular student took it to a whole new level! It was quite impressive the talent of different ways to bemoan my new choice of torture in the art studio. The start of each new drawing brought yet another decibel level of whine along with it and this finished work was originally a "throw away" for another drawing where she may or may not of cheated and looked at her paper while drawing.
And then while adding color to the first work, may or may not of cheated a little more by trying to add in more realistic features to the drawing...... a process she quickly realized destroyed the integrity of the first artwork and without me saying a word discovered that by embracing the unique qualities with blind contour drawing in this second work, she actually liked, no LOVED, her artwork.
Doesn't it remind you of an Andy Warhol cat?!
The minute she started adding color while maintaining the graphic nature of the drawing, she started to fall in love. The whining stopped and was replaced with exclamations of how much she was liking the piece.
A piece she would of never created without trying something so new and let's face it, frightening.
She first added the story directly to the right of the cat. A description of how "Chocolate" got his name.
Not going to lie, I want to fall into a vat of hot chocolate and lather around in it too somedays.
Especially after surviving a lesson in blind contour drawing!
She liked it so much she decided to carry the typography throughout the artwork. I love her discovery that words truly are just drawing symbols and can be utilized as part of art technique.
In the end, she was thrilled with this piece and I'm quite certain it will not be "drawer work".
7 year old, markers on bristol
Which finally brings me to my youngest student, a little boy who I thought would love this process. I thought the idea of not knowing what the outcome would be was something he would truly enjoy, but alas, no. He did not.
He did giggle at each drawing.
He did not appreciate the line quality because he was so horrified by the abstract quality, yet he did finally pick one to complete after he realized the unique qualities of drawing blind were not going to change to something he more readily identified as "good" work.
I will say he enjoyed putting down the color even though adding that much green is A LOT of work! I do think, much like the first student, this will end up in a drawer at his house. But as I keep reminding them, this is about process- not product. As long as they learned something, they have grown as artist.
I will always be partial to this drawing as this is a real life study of some flowers he picked for me that evening on his walk to my studio for class.
Have I mentioned this child has stolen my heart with his big hazel eyes and sweet disposition?
Even when copious amounts of whining are involved in regards to my cruel and unusual punishment involving sharpie pens stuck in the middle of paper plates?
That he picked flowers for me with his sister on the way to class is icing on the cake!
All in all, even with all the complaining, I think the students will look back on this class and say they enjoyed it. Whether or not their work is something they will display, I think they will laugh at the evening and have walked away learning something new. And they should not be surprised to walk back into the studio one day and see those paper plates out again.
And if they do, I believe there will not be the whining because they now know what to expect.
The capabilities of what they can create having learned from this project what they liked and didn't like with their finished art work.
Sometimes introducing new techniques is not pretty, even seen as torturous, but there is such gratification as a teacher to have a student trust you enough to try and even though then may not love it in the end, be able to appreciate their creation in the realization it would not exist without the courage to step forward into the complete unknown.
Would I do this project again? Even when deemed torture at first?
You bet.
cool project. amazing results. you are a gifted teacher of art.
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