Thursday's Art Course

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I went to the art course in Wall Village Hall on Thursday. I was quite nervous about getting a taxi but I phoned up to book a taxi the night before and told him to come at 1:35pm. He arrived at 12:25pm! He was a very nice middle aged asian chap, and he asked me how I was when I got in the taxi. I said I was fine. He asked me to repeat where I was going and he knew the road but didn't know exactly where on the road the village hall was but he assured me he'd find it. It was raining and he said not a very nice day is it? and I said no, I'll have to tell them you chose the right day for it! He turned onto the road that the village hall was on and started looking for it. Is that it? he asked, no. Then we saw a building that said WALL VILLAGE HALL in big letters on it! Ah, there it is! said the cab driver. He charged me £10 because it was a bit further away than he thought. My Mum had generously given me £10 for the cab and I had another £10 on me for the return journey. I asked the taxi driver if he could pick me up to go home at 5:00pm and he made a note of that. Then I got out of the cab and entered the village hall. There was only me and the two tutors. I was the first to arrive and it was still only 1:40pm! I went up to the desk where one of the tutors were sitting and she said, Sharon, isn't it? and I said yes, how did you know? and she said Well, most of the student's are returning students, so as you're knew I knew who you were! I told her that after I'd phoned and sent off the deposit I told my friend on Facebook messenger about it and she said if I'd known I would have come with you, but it was too late by then. And the tutor said maybe she could come to the one tomorrow and catch up before next week, and I said, no, I think she works on a Friday. I handed over the remainder of the course fees which I had in a cheque in an envelope with Seasons Art Class Lichfield written on the front of it. When she'd taken it off me she gave me my starter pack which was a large black case with stuff in. I was directed to a set of tables and told that the new students would be sitting here to do the basics while the rest of the class were over the other side of the room where there were tables with cabbages on! I was told to help myself to a cup of tea, and I asked if there was any green tea. The tutor said no, I don't think so, so I said good job I brought my own then and whipped out one of my supreme matcha green T-bags that I'd brought along for just this situation! I went over to the hatch and made myself a cup of green tea and while I was making it this chap came in and introduced himself as Paul. He was the only other new student here. I brewed my tea and when it was done I went in the kitchen with the T-bag where I was told there was a bin by the sink and I disposed of it. Then I went and found a seat on the new students table to drink my tea. Paul sat opposite. They had nice comfy seats which I wasn't expecting and ceramic mugs which I was glad about. First thing we did when class started is we were shown what was in our cases. We had a sketchbook. We had a small bag which contained 3 pencils, a HB, a 2B and a 4B. When the tutor mentioned the 2B I said, 2B or not 2B! At least Paul thought it was funny! We had an eraser, a pencil sharpener and a putty rubber. We also had a long ruler. In another bag were our papers. We had several sheets of cartridge paper, some pastel paper, some watercolour paper and some acrylic paper. Paul said he hadn't known you needed different paper for different things! Our tutor asked us if we'd done any drawing or painting before, since we'd left school and I said I'd done a bit but Paul was a complete beginner. Our first task was to fill in a sheet we had to help us get used to our pencils. There were boxes to put different marks in. So we did bold lines, light lines, heavy pressure, light pressure, wavy lines, hatching, cross hatching, broken cross hatching, stipling, rolling, uneven pressure which is where you start off pressing had and then slowly lighten the pressure, which you might do if you were drawing feathers etc, and the final one was a block of shading where you could clearly see the differences in each of the pencils. Next thing we did was we copied a picture of a funny looking chicken in our sketchbooks! After we'd done that we turned our sketchbooks round and turned the picture of the chicken round and we drew it again but this time upside down, so his feet were at the top. We were given 10 minutes to do our chicken each time and it didn't matter if it was finished or if it was perfect and I said good! Paul said he thought his looked like a monster! When we had finished we compared our two drawings, the one we did the right way up and the one we did upside down. Turns out the ones we did upside down were more accurate! Apparently this is because we were using the other side of our brain, and that side is more creative! Next we were shown how to do ellipses. We each had a cup in front of us and we held a pencil out infront of us and noted where the length of the ellipse of the cup came on our pencil, take it to the sketchbook and place a dot at each end of the ellipse. Then do the same for the depth of the ellipse, then join the dots as it were making sure the ends were rounded and not pointed! I had a bit of trouble with that and my ellipses looked like sausages. The tutor tried to show me how to bulk it up to make it look like an ellipse but it was hard work. We had several goes at this. We had a tea break at about 3:30pm and I got out another green T-bag! After that we covered a sheet of cartridge paper with graphite. The tutor had a graphite stick with no wood, and she sharpened it and dropped the shavings onto a piece of paper. Then we got a oval shaped bit of cotton wool and dipped it in the shavings and rubbed it all over our sheet of cartridge paper. I managed to get little circles on mine because I kept in one place for too long and I said it looked like storm clouds! When our cartridge paper was covered in graphite, we drew the cup and saucer infront of us starting with the ellipse that we'd been practising in our sketchbooks. It took me a while but eventually I got there. Then we started creating highlights where the light was shining by rubbing bits of the graphite off with the putty rubber. Then we put in some shading with our pencils. When it was finished the tutor looked at it and I think she was surprised by how good it was! The result you can see above. I went to the toilet twice when I was there. By now it was time to go home and we packed our things away. I was the first to leave and I said I had a taxi waiting. It was 5:05pm when I went to the taxi and I apologized for being late. He said, oh, no, five minutes, that doesn't matter. Five minutes doesn't matter. Then he said something about hid wife calling him for dinner and he's like, yes, yes, I know! I mentioned that the weather had improved, and he pointed out some new houses that were being built. He charged me £10 again which was good because I thought it would be more on the way back with it being the rush hour. When I got in I told my Mum all about it and got out my prawn layered salad for dinner! What have you been getting up to? I hope you are all well. Have a nice day.