Conquering mass

Friday is always a "busy" (however defined) day. I have to process my experience from Thursday evening's drawing class, finish all the "leave to do later" assignments, and catch up with various bits of e-correspendence. Today was no exception.

Yesterday's drawing class started unlike a management class.

The professor entered the classroom/studio, carrying boxes of "junk" - toys, artifical flowers, jugs, shoes, a chair, fabrics, etc. -- and announced, "I've nothing planned; here's some stuff, make of it what you like and work on your goals." My heart - and expectations - sank,

but it turned out to be a great class. We each took stuff from the boxes, made ourselves a "still life" and got to work. The Professor circulated for the whole class, stopping to

teach each person something that she or he needed at that moment. (much more difficult that having a "prepared" class!)

I made an arragement, sketched an outline and asked for help with shading - how to create mass. I worked on the one drawing for longer than I've worked on anything else, with the professor stopping by periodically to nudge me to do something differently. Then he moved on to help someone else -- at one tme I looked up to see him waltzing (literally) through the door with a skeleton "from the closet" (where they store all the props) because someone was working on figure

porportions. When I reached a point where I said I could do no more, I was instructed to draw one item -- a lemon - all by itself. And during the crit at the end of class when we hung up all our drawings and said what we had been working on, the professor pointed out what each of us had done really well, and how, so that we could all

learn. Then we were each given individual homework -- I have to reserach how Matisse does

shading. How different from if a management professor had said, "I haven't got anything for class, what do you each want to learn!" (Or maybe not, except that I've never experienced that style done well in management!)

What else was accomplised today? I've almost finished copy edits for a book chapter, and have most of the final chapter of my graphic novel worked out. The mail brougtht new journals and magazines to read, so I have no shortage of excuses to sit on the beach -- except the sun is geting so strong that it has to be either early or late in the day. And the car has been repaired.