All,
thanks for your comments, and your encouragement. Alan, I will take a look at your published work and may well take you up on your offer of assistance.
With regard to the question of drawing confidence, I agree this could be a problem - it is a terrifying experience to attempt a new and complex skill such as life-drawing in front of other people. I am hoping that the proposed semi-circular layout of the class will help, as it will be quite difficult for students to see anyone's easel except their own. Also, in ordinary life-drawing classes I have found the flip-chart pad to be a great comfort to underconfident drawers, as they find it very easy to flip the page over when they are done, and the sheer number of pages in a pad seems to help with the "throw it away, try again" approach. There would be no expectation on them to share their work with others, so I hope that after a couple of sessions students would have become comfortable with the level of privacy afforded to their work and any anxiety will dissipate somewhat. Some of the Edwards exercises might well have a place - I am particularly keen on drawing without looking at the paper, as this has the twin benefits of getting one into the habit of studying the subject in detail, whilst also building up a tolerance of producing very inaccurate drawings, which can only be improved upon...
I believe my first difficulty, however, is going to be in gathering sufficient support for a pilot course unless I can cite research (beyond my own observations) which already suggests that this kind of activity-switching might be beneficial to the learning process. Is anyone aware of anything published specifically on this question? I think the problem addressed here is perhaps indirectly related to writers' block. Again I have heard anecdotal evidence from the patterns community of "random interjections" being used to free up blocked software-design meetings - where the aim is to stimulate a burst of creative insight somewhere in the room - but nothing I could really quote as a reference!
Thanks
Daniel
On 2/6/06, Lindsay Marshall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>How about a whiteboard? Does that hold the same horror for them?
The horror is performing in public I think. Look how nervous people most
people are at doing presentations. A white board would be even worse! I
have some ideas for using tablet PCs that might work for this though -
I'll try them out if/when I get hold of the kit.
L.
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