I was pretty stressed out for the first workshop. Not necessarily just because of the workshop, but also because of the busy-ness of life, currently.
I did find the idea of
teaching older students unnerving. I had almost zero anxiety about the kids
themselves for the elementary workshop in the Fall. I have a lot of experience being
around kids in the 0-12 range. But much, much less experience interacting with
adolescents and teenagers.
I found the community time
to be a little awkward at first. Some students were much more outgoing than
others. And of course, those students were easy to engage with and talk to.
Others seemed very quiet and maybe withdrawn. I tried to engage of couple of
these quiet youths, but often found that it was like trying to squeeze blood
from a rock. They didn’t seem to want to give a foothold for further
conversation. Or maybe they hadn’t developed the social skills for that yet. I
know some adults who haven’t. Most of my attempts involved commenting on their
exquisite corpse drawings, trying to extrapolate a few questions and answers
from those drawings or other sketches they were working on and not getting very
far.
I did hit my stride
when I noticed a couple girls drawing some manga/anime style characters. I *do*
have a pretty decent knowledge of anime and have watched a few different shows
with my kids. So I was able to discuss some shows and characters and manga book
series with relative intelligence. One girl had brought her personal sketchbook
and began showing me example of her drawing. (Later on, during my workshop,
another girl wanted to show me her charcoal drawings on her phone, too.)
By the time we gave our
pitches, I was pretty pumped. I hope I didn’t step on anyone’s toes in my excitement.
The topic I choose has always been near and dear to my own heart (symbolism in
art…and in the world period). I wasn’t sure how well this topic would connect
with a group of modern teenagers, but I figured I couldn’t be too far off base.
This is a serious searching time for many kids. I remember reading a myriad of
books about mythology, world religions, and symbolism when I was in high
school.
I was glad to see that
at a few students were on board and selected my and Caley’s workshop.
For our first lesson,
my goals were to teach the students about the concept of pareidolia, the
technique of marbling paper, and how to construct and bind their own
sketchbook.
I started with passing
around some Rorschach ink blot cards and asking the students to discuss what
they saw. They could then check the back of the card and see if it what they
saw was listed among any of the common responses. The back also contained an “interpretation”
and I stressed that this was not an official test, but rather a game.
I showed the students common examples of
pareidolia, tea bag drawings, and I also took a photo of the class and uploaded it to Google Dream
to show an example of computer-generated pareidolia. (Tea bag drawing below by Austin Kleon.)
Then the girls used
watercolor paint and paper to create their own inkblots.
After the students had
each made an inkblot, I directed them to watch a marbling demonstration I was
giving. After this some girls continued to make ink blots and chat while others
used the marbling baths and marbled their sketchbook cover.
The working time went
pretty well. I had one more girl than expected, but my partner Caley was very
helpful and volunteered to cut some extra paper and covers for the sketchbooks.
Since our working time was shortened we didn’t actually get to constructing the
sketchbooks this time. I had worked out a way the girls could still construct
the sketchbooks even while the covers were still damp. But the process of
marbling took longer (taking turns) than I expected and also made a bigger mess
than I had expected.
(We had a whole drying rack full of marbled paper and covers. Then the papers started migrating to the floor.)
As you can see, they turned out pretty great!
I had set up two marbling baths. I was expecting about
four students, at most, due to the numbers we were given, so I figured four
students taking turns with two baths wouldn’t be too difficult. But we ended up
with six students, and some girls had to wait longer than others to marble. So,
another change I might make would be to have prepared an extra marbling bath
and also extra marbling solution. A ratio of 1 bath per 2 students seems about
right. Also, the solution got pretty messy in the baths after many, many turns,
so extra marbling solution to refill the baths with would be useful.
I did have enough extra marbling solution to refill one
bath once, but now I know to have more than that on hand for the future.
While the girls were taking turns I handed out post it
notes along with a list of my possible lessons for future workshops. Then I had
the girls write their top three choices for lessons. I informed them I would
use majority vote to pick the next two lessons I would teach.
There was an overwhelming vote for overpainting (a lesson
I didn’t even have my own example for, but only a print off of some other
artists work) and the second place choice was for the fiber/sewing on canvas
self-portrait. There were also votes for all the other lessons I had proposed,
so I’m bummed we won’t get a chance to do those, but I’m really looking forward
to seeing what my partner, Caley, comes up with and getting a chance to both
teach and observe.
