Students at Sinaloa Middle School in Novato practiced drawing each other during a recent residency with Mentor Artist Cathy Bowman.
The drawing exercise continued building skills from the previous week, where students made blind contour drawings of animal toys. On this day, students split off in partners and practiced drawing each other without looking at their pens.
It’s always tempting to look! To help, students used a paper plate with a hole in the middle to hide their pens. After drawing each other, we looked at all of the work and discussed the process. Reflecting on our work was an important part of understanding what we did. For the artists, the exercise was good practice in not judging a final drawing as good or bad but instead, appreciating the journey. It made everyone think about focusing on practice, not result.
Through the California Department of Education’s Student Support and Academic Enrichment (SSAE) grant that the Marin County Office of Education received, Youth in Arts was in multiple Special Day Classes this spring.
