First tutoring session

Today I had my first student for the art tutoring sessions I'm beginning to offer.  They're ideally for those looking to get into a post secondary art school.  This student in particular is going to be applying to Sheridan's Animation program in two years, and wanted to get ahead of the game.  Awfully close to home, as that's the program I graduated from nearly two years ago.  I'm extremely excited to finally have an outlet to pass on this knowledge too.  

This is how I envision the ideal education system.  A system that allows a continued 'passing down' of knowledge as soon as you graduate from whatever part of life you're currently in, to those about to enter it.  A steady stream of information, knowledge, and resources from those who have most recently been involved with the skill-learning that you're currently seeking.

Glad to make continued use of some of my 'textbooks' from school.  Early on, I was a bit of a fanatic with acquiring these, as many of my friends may have known.  Plenty of great inspiration here.  I love the quote by Jim Rohn: "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.'  

I feel this especially applies with books and how they relate to our thinking and beliefs.  If you've got goals, surround yourself with the right things to facilitate them being accomplished.

Yes... I kept all of my hand-outs from school.  I just strangely thought one day I might use them.  Happy to dig up these little golden gems provided by the Sheridan faculty.  Learning is everywhere.

We dove into a little bit of life drawing instruction.  Complete with the gesture / axis points / then skin and muscle layer technique.  The idea of this is to grab a yellow, red, and blue chalk, then use the yellow to make a very quick 5- 10 second gesture (really just a few strokes!), then draw a stick person in red that identifies the shoulder and hip axis', and the relevant joints, then eventually adding blue on top as the actual, seen 'skin' layer on top.  This keeps things from being too intimidating when diving right into it.  Also emphasized minimal face, hand, and feet detail in quick gestures.

The battle zone after the session!  Had a good look at lots of my past work, complete with some animation frames I'd drawn on paper in school, past sketchbooks while I was learning, and plenty of great books that help to get the creative juices flowing.

I felt it was a great first session, and I look forward to visiting local high school to speak with students about these services I'm offering, as well as the process it takes to get into difficult art schools.

These tutoring sessions are also a great addition to my regular life drawing sessions I run, which I've titled 'Guelph Art Hub', because it offers students a chance for me to take a look at their work, and help them build upon the skills they have.  As I remember, it can be very tricky feeling comfortable to allow others to see your work, but this is just one more of the difficult things that are involved with being a part of an arts discipline, and something I think many of us go through in our lives one way or the other.  

I hope that future sessions continue to be such a fun success.  For more info about these tutoring sessions please take a look at my Garth's Art Camp page.