[with apologies to John Lennon]

Well, here we go again folks. After an inexcusable hiaitus from posting during the summer, your favourite half-witted lecturer is back again, pencils sharpened and raring to. In other words: I’m a firm believer in the principle of not asking other folks to do something you wouldn’t be prepared to do yourself so, as ever I’ll be mucking in with my students [whenever tedious spreadsheet-sucking duties allow] in the various design challenges we set them during the coming year.

The first challenge for the new first year intake was a bit of drawing from life which we set as an initial assessment [just to gauge what levels of drawing ability we had within the group]. The tables in Room 222 were loaded up with miscellaneous fruit, plants and other bric-a-brac and everyone set to work.

Watching the watchers Sketching the sketchers

Here’s my rough sketch of our Still Life drawing session, showing the students hard at work.

Chili Goodness

After initially drawing the section of the mountain of junk opposite them, the students were then asked to pick out one specific object and investigate it visually. So starting with the object as a whole and then ‘zooming in’ on various details. Chili addict that I am, I naturally opted for one of the chili plants [although I was disappointed to find when tasting the bumper harvest, that the chilis in question were about as hot as Anne Widdecombe].