This isn’t a dream. Follow me toward your index card drawing prompt.
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Okay, now that we’re here, take a moment to still your mind. Actually.
And now, calmly and purposefully, practice reading instructions carefully. Do the steps in order, one by one. Actually.
Steps:
Outer Space
1. Remove distractions. This includes turning off notifications and text alerts.
2. Clear off your workspace.
3. Prepare your materials: sharp pencil, comp book, a sense of focus.
Inner Space
1. Relax your body. Start at the top of your head and end with the tips of your toes.
2. Take an extended moment to focus on your breath and try to get into that calm and friendly place Lynda Barry says images are attracted to.
When You’re Ready
1. Draw an index card-sized frame. Dare yourself to do it without a ruler. Breathe through the discomfort. ; )
2. Your job is to copy the below image of a Welsh countryside.
You need to draw the entire image within the time limit – six and a half minutes – calmly, without getting OCD about any one particular area.
If you want to challenge yourself, try to capture as much detail as possible while still capturing the whole picture. Think lines of a map. Think spatial relationships.
Let go of perfect. Capture the place.
When you are ready, press “Play” in the YouTube window below the image to drift on a cloud the sublime Sabine Meyer playing the 2nd Movement of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic: an old classroom classic.
Keep your pencil in motion for the entire six and a half minutes; stop when the music stops.
This is the image:
This is the music:
3. Date your image and add the title: “Welsh Countryside.”
You do not need to send me this drawing, but file it somewhere safe: we will look at it when we do one-on-one conferences a little later in the term.
Now, reread the instructions and look at your drawing. Did you do what was asked of you? Did you miss any of the instructions by mistake?
Is there anything in this image that might be useful for your The Black Cauldron work?
Next:
Consider making a checklist for the day and/or checking yesterday’s homework sheet (did you forget anything?).
See you at 10:00. It will be a slightly shorter meeting that usual as I have a staff meeting at 11:00.
Until then, tootles.
PS: I once asked two clarinetists with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra what the best recording of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto was (this is not how most of my conversations go) – they looked at each other and then said, at the same time, “Sabine Meyer. Abbado.”