SPRING WORKSHOP: Rome 2019

ROME

Drawing Workshop, spring 2019

What I learned as a Teacher?

1. Observation: Easy to teach, difficult to learn because regards Concentration, that is an important part of the human Intelligence. If you improve your Concentration, without being distracted from other thoughts (mainly: too much goals, daily commitments, bad feelings etc) you will immediately establish the base of your sketch, resolving problems before starting to draw.

2. Goals: One clear goal is much much better than many.
If you are teaching how to give Volume, how to improve the Silhouette, how to choose your color palette, just concentrate all the effort on this goal, pushing your students to not be distracted by other difficulties they will encountered during the process!
This is essential to reach the success!

3. Appeal and Balance: Every exercise could be boring if you don't spice up, adding an interesting way to proceed and a challenge.
Balance_Anyway, if the subject or the task is too complicated, students could be confuse and discouraged. Just balance it, choosing a simple perspective, if the exercise regards how to use value or color, or an intriguing view if the exercises aims to create interesting distortion.
Spice it up_Are you teaching how to synthesize the complexity of "that impossible 17th century church facade"? Give them a short amount of time to finish it, or
Do you want to push your student to create more dynamic sketches? Let them draw people in real life, telling him to exaggerate their action as if they were drawing theater actors, etc.

4. Know your goal as a teacher. Well, that's nothing new, but you need to create a certain empathy with your student and know exactly why you want to teach.
You can't be the best friend of the student, neither the student is your son. You have that "middle role" between the know and unknown (always regarding your skills), you have the duty to transmit your knowledge so that the student can grow on his own.
A Teacher must demonstrate sureness and honesty in the same time:
Sureness: you can help your student to give him a good structured base where he can feels confident
and at the same time you must be honest.
Honest: if you don't know something you have to admit that, but nonetheless, try to find a solution to help him according to you skill.

Teaching help you to improve:
-Concentration and Observation (intelligence);
-Clear communication of a concept (intelligence);
-Create better relation with other, knowing better yourself (empathy);
-Help others to grow on their own (empathy)
and much more...

Tell me about you experience as a teacher, what you learn about it and what you want to improve!

Gara Sociale alla Lupa Capitolina

Beautiful day at Lupa Capitolina, roman arch society. Everything went as italian way is known: program changes, delays, some last minute changes, a lot of sun, a lot of chatting and super super good food! What else?  

Bellissima giornata di sole al campo di tiro alla Lupa Capitolina, società romana di tiro con l'arco.
Per la gara sociale tutto è stato fatto alla maniera italiana: cambi di programma, ritardi, un pò di cambiamenti dell'ultimo minuto, tanto sole, tante risa, tante chiacchiere e buonissimo cibo!

USK 10x10 ROME

 

 

USK 10X10 ROME
Hi sketchers!
I'm just finished my participation for this year for 10x10 Usk. It was an amazing experience, as usual.
I love to teach and transmit my passion about drawing, see my students grow and become more confident with their skill!
Someone discovers a new way to express themselves, someone increases their capacity in observation, learning how to synthesize the reality.

Structured mind
Many of them need time, a lot of time, to finish a sketch.In many cases this is a problem of chaotic mind, where a lot of questions and problems just invaded the land, bringing confusion.
If the mind is clear and the right questions (but specially the right number) came one at a time, the student is more relaxed.

He just need to focus the goal and develop the capacity to create the most inherent questions to go beyond the obstacles.

So give an example of structured mind is one of my main purpose when I'm teaching.
Teaching the style it's a process that I simply call "a matter of time", instead create a "structured mind" is something that I call "forever", it is a strong base where anyone could develop, step by step, their own style.

THREE STEPS IN COSTA RICA

I traveled to Costa Rica for three weeks with Felpa Gialla!
This trip was one of my favorites. The country takes care of its natural parks, trying to protect one of the last places where nature is synonymous with abundance.

On this trip we stayed in a Chocolate factory, where we saw the whole process, from the collection to the refining of cocoa, at Hotel Belmar, the first carbon neutral hotel, and at Finca Exotica, which is defined more a place of inspiration, a retreat, more than an ecolodge. If you are traveling to Costa Rica, I suggest you visit these three areas and the surroundings.

 In the North there is Rio Celeste, in the center the Cloud Forest and in the South the park with the most biodiversity in the world, Corcovado National Park. We moved a lot with the buses and we faced three changes of airplane in the first leg and four changes on the return , but we survived!
We have many things to tell even about our movements.

Costa Rica, like all countries, hides many contradictions, starting from the statistics of the people who follow the Christian religion, practically 99% and the widespread trade of drugs.
People are very hospitable, a little shy about private matters, but they open up to dialogue very easily.
If you say thank you, they answer "Mucho gusto", that means, with pleasure, if you look for directions they will try to help you even if they can not give you an answer. If you speak Spanish you will still have to get used to their accent, very different from that of Spain.

In Costa Rica it is important to know how to use watercolor. And about colors, I have always had a somewhat conflictive relationship. Color is related to my emotional tranquility, it is something connected to joy.
Because of some difficulties and stress about travel planning, that we found along the way, I have "unlocked my color feeling" only at the end.
For this reason, I normally try to travel for longer periods, to have time to adapt to the situation, so I can observe with more quiet, but this time it was not possible.

I thank all the people who made this trip possible and Lonely Planet Italy who gave us the guide.
We felt all the time in the family!
Together with the owner of Cata Chocolate we celebrated Thanksgiving, at the Hotel Belmar they were all very kind and helpful, they stayed to chat with us for a long time despite their commitments to explain their project of environmental sustainability, same thing to Finca Exotica where Markus and Gabriela talked to us and showed their dream.

All Costa Rica can be considered a spiritual retreat.

Really where there is nature there is spirit.My and my companion wrote some articles about our journey here: Patreon (in english) and on Felpa Gialla (in italian)
Hope you enjoy!