In these last two weeks since my last post, I feel I’ve made a decent amount of progress. Since we cannot meet in person any longer, I am communicating with my mentor Nina and Amin through messaging on Instagram. We are also looking to set up a few video calls but it is a little tricky. Nina is also a student and since she is in grade 12, a lot is going on. I have been practicing and playing around with watercolour painting in my free time. I will admit that it was a bit challenging at first to find the motivation to consistently practice, but now that I have set aside time every day that I can do a little practice, it is more structured and easier to get working. Since I am not learning face to face with Nina, I have been finding resources online to assist me in watercolour painting. A challenge that I am currently facing is that I am almost out of watercolour paper. This is a problem because watercolour paper is a necessary supply that I need to continue my project. I may have to order it online or find a different solution so that I am still progressing and improving my skills. I have also been thinking about my final project, which I am hoping to create a final watercolour piece.
Here are some of the things I’ve been doing:
Basic Watercolour Skills
Mixing Neutrals and Flesh Tones (top) & Layering Shapes
Bottle using Layering Technique
Questions:
1. What kinds of learning opportunities does the mentor provide to expose you to new learning?
Nina has been great at teaching us new techniques. Before spring break, we had two meetings where we learned various watercolour techniques. Since we cannot meet in person, it has been a bit harder to learn from her. Amin and I have been doing our learning from other resources like YouTube videos, websites, blogs, etc.
2. What kinds of learning opportunities exist to reinforce new learning?
I’ve been doing my learning online. Nina is always there when I need to ask her questions or need help. To reinforce learning, I feel that consistent practice has helped. If you practice watercolour one day and don’t practice again for a few weeks, you are likely to forget what you’ve learned and you’re back at stage one. To successfully build off of skills you are learning, it’s important to practice regularly.
3. What kinds of opportunities exist that might accelerate learning?
Opportunities that may accelerate my learning are online resources. I feel that I still learn a lot through videos because I can always pause it when I’m stuck or go back to a certain point if I need clarification. I have also been looking at websites that teach watercolor skills and techniques.
4. When you get together what do you talk about?
When we had in-person meetings, we would talk about how we are feeling about the skills we learned and if we have any questions regarding watercolour painting. We would go over the practice we did during the 2 weeks leading up to the meeting. While we would paint, we would also talk a bit about how our personal lives are going. Nina talked to Amin and I about how she’s applied to universities because she’s currently a grade 12 student.
5. What is going particularly well in your mentoring relationship right now?
Communication via messaging on social media has worked fairly well since we cannot meet in person. I feel comfortable asking Nina for clarification questions or just questions regarding specific techniques. I feel that by having video calls we can improve that communication but messaging is still working well.
6. What are you learning about one another?
I have learned that Nina is a very talented artist. Before we went off to spring break, Ms. Croft showed us one of her finished watercolour pieces, and it was amazing. Nina also has an art Instagram account where she posts some of her digital art. As I talked about earlier, Nina is a grade 12 student and she has applied to various universities.
I feel like I’ve made progress since my last post and I look forward to learning new skills and overcoming more obstacles. Updates to come.