Another Drawing Class

 One thing I learned as a professor was that I could not count on great attendance following a holiday.  Give students a day off from a scheduled class, whether it be for a federal holiday, scheduled college break, or a snow day, and the next time we met, there would always be fewer students.  Don't know if there was a real reason, but I always assumed that it was because students were off from class for a day, and forgot they had one.  We were off from drawing last week, so I was expecting less than a full class today, despite me sending a reminder last week, and no one telling me they weren't coming.  With only one student, I was just hoping one would show up.

Today we were continuing ink wash, and in my second classes with this material, the subject is typically a leafy plant, which I would hang in a simple wooden tripod, in its hanging basket.  Above is a student drawing of this set up from a long ago college drawing class.  Room at regular full lighting, as this is not about light and shadow as the first try at this medium is, and the local colors of the set up provide lots of value range for the ink wash.  However, I do have a very leafy plant in a white pot, and can seat that on my wooden desk chair, which has a value range of its own.  And I keep that chair in my Studio, so it's handy to my class.

Got the room and my still life all set up about a half hour before the class was scheduled to begin.  I had my best attending student show up early, mostly to get my advice and evaluation of her attempt to use previous advice for portrait drawing, but eventually she picked a spot, and started drawing the still life.  She was a little intimidated by the large number and crowding of leaves, so I just told her to start with one, draw it well, then move on to the next, and before long the whole thing would be done.  (it's how I work such things) It took her a little over an hour, but she had a very good pencil rendering of the set up done.  After a short break, she put down some value, as there was a lot there to work with.  I suggested just 4 levels, based on the time left.  She also took a lot of photos of the set up, with plans to do more work on it later.  I thought that she had done a good job with the drawing, though she wasn't as crazy about her values so far.  Looks very organic to me, which is a good thing. 

As I expected, my other student didn't show, and I wasn't surprised that I had an email from her apologizing for missing the class, and saying something about forgetting today was Saturday until it was too late.  I'll write her back tomorrow with the specifics of the class in case she wants to try the process on her own, as well as materials for next week, in case she shows up.