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practicing what I preach
January 12, 2010
My students are not used to being expected to fill a whole sketchbook for every drawing course they take, and most of them carry around a big black hardbound book that they use for all of their studio courses. It makes me sad to see how little they’ve drawn in books that in some cases they’ve been using for a year and a half now, and how many of those precious pages are instead filled with notes from art history class. I told my life drawing students that I expect them to draw every day, in order to develop good working habits if nothing else. I also told them that I would bring my own book to class so that they could check up on me and know that I’m keeping the same commitment I’m demanding from them.
These are the books I brought with me to draw in while I’m here. The one on the left should look familiar: it’s another of my 20-spread drum leaf books made entirely of old prints. I used to draw in these every day, but got out of the habit when I got busy with my thesis work and never picked it up again (see, kids? If you don’t draw every day then you wind up having NO WORK ETHIC AT ALL). In the centre is a longstitch binding by Stacie Dolin, another gift she brought me when she visited Windsor last fall. I’m especially looking forward to drawing in this one, as it will feel good to go back to blank pages after drawing on top of layers and layers of ink for so long. On the right is a perfect bound notebook I made using a variety of recycled papers. These should keep me going for a while. Of course, I haven’t started drawing in any of them yet (don’t tell my students).
Grace asked for clarification on what buffet has to do with Manifest Destiny, and I’ll write something about that later. Soon. It’s just that I goofed off all day today and now I have this syllabus and lesson plan to finish for tomorrow morning. Ah, the last minute desk jive. My favourite dance.
Posted by jodi on January 12, 2010 at 8.15pm
Categories: art, teaching
Comments on "practicing what I preach"
re: Manifest Destiny, I can’t wait til you get to the part about the ham cubes.
Posted by peter on January 12, 2010 at 9.14pm :: link
Slacker. ;-)
Posted by grace on January 13, 2010 at 10.55am :: link