Very Impressive

Mr. Shelton stopped by during our first hour drawing class and seemed very impressed by the students' drawings. Catherine is just about done with her portrait and it is beautiful. A few students are trying the ink fingerprinting. I am very proud of them for stepping outside their comfort zone. Alexis, Cori and Adam all finished their scratchboards and did a terrific job. Have a great weekend and for those students who took projects home to work on, have fun drawing! It can be a stress reliever if you just enjoy the process. I am excited to see what you all do. I know I've seen a lot of great ideas.

Enthusiasm at its best

It was fun to see how excited some of the students were getting about their portraits. Haley and Kellee were on a mission. They thought they wouldn't be able to do this project and their drawings were looking good! I didn't realize there would be so much apprehension, but I should have figured. Lisa was very conscientious about getting it right. I truly have loved teaching drawing and getting to know my students this semester. We have a lot of great kids at Johnsburg High School and they know how to get enthused about learning.

Portraits coming alive

Several students are well on their way with the portraits. Some are drawing friends or relatives, others-famous figures and some have chosen random models from the magazines or Internet. Many of the students are using a grid to draw their figures. The consensus seems to be that the grids help a lot. A few students are braving it on their own and are doing very well. I am excited to see the end results.

Happy New Year

I hope everyone enjoyed their break. We all should be well rested and ready to give the last couple weeks of the semester our FULL effort. I graded quizzes and sketchbooks this past week. The quizzes were pretty good but a lot of students did not turn in their last homework assignment. Grades are reflecting this missing work. The missing assignments will still be accepted, however, points will be taken off for late work. AWESOME job to those who turned the sketchbooks in. Conner's drawings were superb! We will not be having any more words of the day, however we will be reviewing our past words. Students should spend some time studying them, because I will be quizzing them on all of the words next week.

A person with less skill and more passion, wins everytime. A person with more skill, and lost passion, beats himself. (unknown)

Tuesday's Mystery

Today was a little stressful. Some students are starting on their portraits, but others are still finishing their scratchboards. A discovery was made today of some not so thoughtful words scratched into one of the tables. I was disappointed, mad, curious as to who would write such a thing and inquisitive-- just trying to solve the mystery. As a result of my private questioning, rumors started to fly and people's feelings were hurt. I tried to be tactful in my questioning but our emotions sometimes get the best of us and some of us allowed those emotions take us to levels of unreasonable thinking. I tried not to be accusing in my questioning, but rumor has it that I was. That was not my intention at all and if any of my students who are completely innocent felt under attack, I truly am sorry to have made you feel uncomfortable. One of the most important things we can learn from this is... to never jump to conclusions before you are certain they are true. Spreading rumors about others is a form of bullying and we need to think two or three times...before we say (or engrave) ANYTHING about ANYBODY any where. I still have no idea who scratched those words into the table, but those engraved words have resulted in a lot of hurt feelings. I wonder if that was the intention...or was it just a joke? I'm not laughing if it was intended as such.

frontal bone - the bone that forms the front part of the skull and the upper part of the eye sockets.

Portrait of choice

Our last in class project will be a portrait. We will be drawing them from a photograph and using a grid. The students may use a variety of mediums to create their portraits. I showed some examples of portraits that were completed with ink pads and finger prints.

zygoma - the bony arch of the cheek formed by connection of the zygomatic and temporal bones.