This is my third blog post on my In-depth project, and my second progress report. To recap, my project is on Indian Folk Art. Currently I am working on Warli, a form of tribal art, and I have made significant progress in the last two lessons. I have pretty much finished the project I was working on.
Starting from where I left off yesterday, I learned how to make a pattern of drawing people in a circle. I had a circular grid with lines at every ten degrees, and between each line I drew an upside-down triangle, and a right side up triangle. Then I drew a circle on top of that, with a neck and hair. Then I drew two small lines at the bottom as legs. This is important because this symbolizes community in a village.
Speaking of villages, I learned how to draw many aspects of a village. I drew a hut, with a person similar to the people in the circle. I drew two people playing drums and manipulated the angle of the top triangle to the bottom to make them look like they were bending down. I also made a cow, birds, and a tree. In the center of the circle, I drew a sun.
As part of my homework, I fine-lined the project and colored in certain parts using a sharpie. After this we should be mostly finished.
What went particularly well during your mentoring sessions?
These mentoring sessions went very well, as we made a lot of progress. At first it was slow, but once we got the hang of everything, it sped up quickly. My mentor joined the video call with two cameras, one for her and one for her drawing.
The lessons were also very calm. Art itself is a calming exercise, but the lessons were at a steady pace. There was a lot of repetition in patterns, which meant I could easily head off on my own after my mentor told me what to do.
What relationship challenges did you face?
I think that for the most part me and my mentor were communicating effectively. Her instructions were clear and precise. When I had questions, I felt comfortable asking them. One example was when drawing part of the border, I started in the wrong area, and my mentor explained that.
We didn’t take care to check out assumptions with each other, mostly because we didn’t really think of any. I was worried that my mentor would be annoyed easily. But she was really patient and understanding, so that assumption didn’t last long.
I believe we were mostly listening to each other. I followed my mentor’s instructions, but of curse sometimes I didn’t understand them. My mentor was okay with stopping so I could fix an error, or explaining a step better. However sometimes I wanted to move on ahead when my mentor was giving more directions, so I will work on improving my patience.
What learning challenges emerged?
There weren’t many difficulties in my learning, however I did struggle to see her canvas at first. To fix this we tried putting the camera at many different angles, until we found one that worked. I also wasn’t able to show my work with a second camera, so to hold myself accountable for this I made sure to hold up my canvas every time I finished a step.
Another learning challenge that emerged was the fact that I didn’t always have all the materials needed. To hold myself accountable, I made a list of the items I needed to bring next class. I needed better paper, more sketch pens, and more fine-liner, to name a few items.
Conclusion:
I am really enjoying all these lessons. Even through the problems, me and my mentor are able to find quick or easy solutions, and we have a good understanding of each other. I will post more later about my progress, especially as we will hopefully move onto different art styles soon.
