Thursday, October 23, 2008

Letter to Teach

Dear Teach,

Your lesson today was so exciting. The specifics of instruction made me feel empowered to attempt something I have never done, which is sit and draw a landscape!

I loved the explanation about the atmospheric moisture and why things at a distance lose the contrast and are lighter. Also, the importance of placing the horizon. . . of how shadows turn into just a line the farther away they are. . . thrilling!

I got my oil pastels and am waiting with baited breath for Monday. I love your instruction and how-to's on different details. I don't know if you have planned Monday to do any exercises on like "how to draw a tree" "how to draw a bush" "how to draw grass" "how to draw shadows", etc, but those basics would be so helpful for me.

My parents taught round and square dancing. They were well known for being able to teach even the clumsiest to dance and dance well. Their secret was they majored on the basics. They would teach one small set of steps at a time and have their students repeat over and over until they were fully confident. Then, they would introduce the next set of steps. To some of their peer teachers, their method seemed childish. But to their grateful students, Mother and Daddy were dance saviors!

I feel pretty clumsy on the working end of the "paintbrush". But I have this roaring desire to "dance" on canvas!

Thank you SO much!

Hattigrace

1 comment:

Gardenia said...

Learning landscapes is priceless! It is a matter of seeing things in simpler form - a discipline that is so exciting to master!

One of these days, let's take our pastels and paper and go out to the lagoons around Orange Beach - there is some fab scenery there - oh my gosh! We can do preliminary paintings, take photos and then go home and put them to canvas! One of these days!