Car smiles...

There is a car outside our place that always makes me smile. It is a silver Mazda sport something and it smiles. It occurs to me that including a section on car personifications might be fun for my photography students. I am always looking for new and different ways to engage students to step outside the expectations and see something unexpected - like looking at clouds and seeing images, remember that?

I have a new book this year that I am excited to use in class, and am planning on teaching a workshop on it this fall at the teacher convention our school attends every year. The title of the book is "Keys to Drawing with Imagination" by Bert Dodson (author of "Keys to Drawing," another favorite), and he has a delightful approach to "gaining confidence and enhancing your creativity." I tend to be rather narrow (hence the book is probably more for me ;o) when teaching students the fundamentals of art, using the premise that I was taught, "learn the foundations" then build on them however you want. So, my students seem to think that I only want the expected "in the box" drawings. One of his exercises is to "cloudwatch" and draw the result. We do an exercise in my class of drawing popcorn kernels and making them into a recognizable illustrations. Kids find it intimidating at first, but eventually get the hang of it, and come up with some really great pictures.

Speaking of reading, I have another aspect of teaching that is, perhaps, quite unconventional as far as an Art class goes, and that is we read a lot in a couple of my classes. Now "a lot" is relative according to who is listening (or in this case reading), but research on memory application is finding that several different methods of presenting material helps a student assimilate the information and be better able at applying it later. [Twenty years at this and you'd think I had this teaching stuff down...Abba is always teaching this old dog new tricks!]

Last year, in my AP class, we read "The Shack" together, some aloud, and some assigned. What could this have to do with art, you ask? [I am such an anticipator and don't you love me answering my own questions? But, after all, you aren't here so we could talk face to face. :o( ] There are books that just have a profound effect on you and this was one of those books. As I stated in a previous blog post, our creative outlets are varied and many, and life effects us all in so many differents ways that also effects our creativity. Paul Young wrote "The Shack" as a story to leave his kids and grandkids, never anticipating the resulting widespread popularity of the book. He never planned on the story being published, but was pressured by friends to do so, and the rest is... - it has been on the USA Today and NY Times bestsellar list for two years in the top ten.

What a story...read it! You won't be sorry. I say that when God has a plan to do something big, he won't let our reticence stand in His way. This is a good thing where artists (students) are concerned (and everyone else, too!) It is why I love my job planting "trees." God will bring the gift out so everyone can see it!