South High School- David Olsen- Residency 4 1/2hrs
MCTC- Gregory Rose- Residency4hrs
This week at MCTC the students were continuing to develop further into value. They’re really trying to capture the lightest lights and darkest darks in their compositions. I came in early again to help Gregory set up the class and prepare his lecture. The majority of class today was spent working off of another box still life and having the students experiment with materials like ink and charcoal or conversely with using different mark making techniques to develop value. For the mark making examples we showed the class Van Gogh’s drawings so that they could see the wide variety of possibilities and hopefully begin to visualize their own mark making language. I’m becoming incredibly comfortable walking around the class and conversing with students about their work. They are making some incredible strides with their drawings and seem to be really receptive to feed back. It’s amazing giving a student some pointers and then when I get back to them again to see that they tried to use my suggestion. These short moments are probably my favorite teaching experience so far. It feels wonderful to be able to help someone reach their vision and to see that they really care about their piece. I really love the experience I am having at MCTC. At South High School this week Meg Knutson, David’s UMN TA, introduced the ceramics two and three students to a mask project. They get to make a mask of any form or design they want as long as it is larger than their head and incorporates a material outside of ceramics. Some of the students really took off with the idea but a lot seemed hesitant to make something different than pottery. It’s interesting to see the students being pushed to experiment and expand their knowledge of what their medium can do.