I spent last week preparing for my first jewelry design lesson in Dutch: the one I was scheduled to teach on Friday. Did I mention I was teaching it in Dutch? That was a new challenge. I spent no fewer than six hours on Thursday writing notecards. It was partly so I could remember what I wanted to say but mostly so I could remember how to say it properly in the foreign language in which I am only marginally competent. Shockingly, I got through the lesson, only relied on the notecards in a minor way (just having written them was immensely helpful), and the students understood me… except the guy who spoke English. Having a non-Dutch English speaker was in some ways harder: I had to explain in both Dutch and English at certain times, and going back and forth is difficult.
Overall, the students seemed to like the class, and I could see that it was a new way of thinking for them. This was interesting for me, because I’ve never taught design visualization to anyone before, and most of the people to whom I’ve taught design practices were junior level employees who already knew the basics. I started with what I consider the golden rule: always draw 1:1. Some of the class was more artsy than others, so getting them to draw in true scale and think about how they were going to execute their projects in real life gave them ample problems to solve. You could almost see their minds working as they were like, oh… I’m not sure you could wear this, and this is going to be too small or too big or uncomfortable. It reminded me of when untrained design directors hand out ideas to execute without any concept of reality, and then when you try to build them, you hit all the walls of reality. It was a fun lesson to teach.
I’m excited for a new opportunity this weekend too: I’m taking part in a small show as part of the ongoing Westerpark Buurtlicht series. I’ll set up a booth with my little Shadow Blooms collection and prep a pdf reel of paintings so that, if there’s time, they can spin them on the projector. Pretty cool! My first show! I think I’m going to apply for the larger Buurtlichtroute that happens annually in September with my digital Protoas. I have to work on animating them, so that will become my next big project. It’s a good excuse to get into Blendr.