Casual Conversation

Been training a bit of my drawing skill, mostly because I've been a volunteer drawing teacher at a public school. Classes are once a week and currently it's only 6 "hand picked" kids ages 8-9. After the mid-year recess, I'll probably take a second class on the morning.

My biggest challenge is trying to make all the abstractions of drawing more interesting and straight to the point, so I really can't sit them down to just draw ellipses and cubes to understand. Last week I tried to get them to draw a plushie giraffe using only simple shapes, it was clear they were aching to just draw the whole thing as they saw it.

Tomorrow, I'm planning some posing exercises with stickmen. The only thing I'll force them to do is ensure all stickmen they draw have clearly defined shoulder and hip lines, afterwards asking them to "finish" the drawings. Hopefully that'll keep them engaged.

I've only given 3 classes thus far, but this has been the thing that I've been most looking forward to since I began. I know that, at the very least, all those kids are now well aware that drawing isn't about talent, it's about training correctly. I should probably try a parallel with the training sports players do, since their training is usually 70% basic exercises, 30% short games