Fatma Loves to Draw!

First day of the week. Second week of the workshop. 

Today wasn’t a success, but I enjoyed it. Some people were enthusiastic about learning how to draw patterns. Others were pretty passive and bored, five girls circled around a table and started chatting.. haha! 

One 11th grader had to leave in the middle of the session after learning that she failed two subjects in her final exams. It makes me sad because she’s one of my eight favorite students… 

Introducing Oppositions wasn’t as easy as I expected. They perceive things too figuratively, directly and in a very linear manner. One of the opposites was sweet and sour; they chose Kiwi and banana, or coffee and cherry.. God, I am so unprepared for such situations. 

As for tomorrow, I haven’t really decided what to give them. ;P

We are half way there; 5 more days and we’ll be done. I am just glad it’s finally the weekend so I can relax a little. Babysitting Shosho from 5PM till 11PM wasn’t on my agenda, but it’s ok; I’ll try to avoid it next time. :wink:

The workshop was mostly fun today. I introduced them to mind-mapping and collaging. For the first time they actually asked for more time!  Then I gave them tracing paper and took them down to the library to find some fashion magazines to try out the 9-Heads. I FAILED BIG TIME! WOW. It was like i knew nothing; I didn’t manage to show them a good way to do it. For me it’s always been practice. How am i supposed to show them how to do it in 30 minutes?.. 

For 5 days, I come home thinking neither university nor rota have made me feel this stressed. How do you guys do it? 

I miss the old life. :)

The forth session wasn’t bad. I’ve learned something new, and the bored group spoke at last. They said they’re interested in Figure drawing, which I intend to introduce next week. 

Some students told me that they enjoyed the Texture exercise the most because they got to wonder around and interact with objects they didn’t want to go back to the studio. I thought that was nice, and I agreed with them.

Tomorrow’s the last day of the week. I’m planning to introduce them to mind-mapping for concepts. Then we’ll do some collages based on those concepts.

It’s been one long day. I am too exhausted to finish my drawing before bed. I can’t wait to have Chai Latte in the morning, YUM!

Good night, Tumblr.

Day three.. where to start?

I did not manage to do the Texture exercises that were planned for today. It was too overwhelming to have 18 students attending, and more than half of which did not attend the first two sessions, which resulted into me repeating the exercises from yesterday’s session. Almost 7 students ended up being bored for they have completely finished the exercise in 30 minutes. That was bad, totally unexpected.  I did not know how to deal with it differently.  My attempt at explaining colors for the second time was even worse than the first time, which was funny. Haha!

I have gotten feedback from a few good students on what they would like to explore more if possible and I plan on giving it a go this Thursday or next week. 

I don’t think i’ll be asking to run any other workshops for a looong time after this one. Yes, it’s my first but I’m already burnt. Too much thinking, too much responsibility.

Mayed tells me it’s alright, i’ll always come up with something to make it work. Law says i’ll get used it, it’ll get easier. Nobody tells me it’s gonna get BETTER.

I am being a baby, but the truth is: I’m enjoying it. It’s a new experience, and i am learning a lot from my mistakes. 

Challenges:

• Number of students
• Communication
• Duration of the session: Too long?
• Keeping the students interested

The second day of the workshop went very well. Yesterday, I stayed up till 1am preparing the materials needed for the session, mostly templates, for each phase of the project. I was extremely worried I’d fail, I even thought I’d stop going, and simply quit from the start. It was a strange feeling. Eventually, I tried not to think about what could go wrong and focus on what could go right. 

At first, only 6-7 students arrived. I didn’t expect more so I proceeded with the first exercise. Around 15 minutes later, 10 more students showed up. I was perplexed for a few moments to be honest; frightening but also exciting. We ran out of time so we decided we’d finish the last part first thing tomorrow. 

Today’s main focus area was:

• Forget about what you know and draw only what you see. Haha, I actually told them ” un-educating the educated mind..” Most of them did not get it, of course!
• Breaking down an object into a simpler form. Which reminds me I need to go over the materials and check if it’s possible to get them better, more useful ones. 

The challenges:

• Color analogy
• And again, communicating them in Arabic..!

Looking forward to our 3rd session.

Today was the first day of the VCUQ summer workshop. I am one of the instructors giving the Skill Building session with 2 student assistants. We were expecting 20 students, only 8 showed up. 

The first day is meant to be light, fun and more of an ice-breaker so I prepared a few exercises according to that. The only problem was that I also set up a minute for each student to introduce themselves saying their names and mentioning why they’re in this program. When 8 students show up and each taking 3 seconds as an introduction, I started to worry I’m going to end up with 1 hour of no exercises left to do. I did not have a  Plan B!

The 2 assistants were brilliant. They helped me out, and managed to save the day. 

Challenges:

• Keeping time
• Making sure nobody’s bored
• Communicating the terms in Arabic
• “Un-educating” the educated mind

My plan for tomorrow is not to expect more than 3 participants. Haha.