Back to basics

Guess what, I joined a community art class. I have become the student again.

I rock up with my sketchbook, paper and pencil case, running slightly behind schedule and ready for the routine of the class. It’s been wonderful to going back to being a student, to be on the end of the student experience, not providing it.

I go with a friend, she and I used to teach art together, a fact we hid from the teacher for as long as possible so as not to intimidate or disrupt what he has to offer. Do you know, we love it, I love it.. it’s a couple of hours where I just draw, sketch and paint, thinking about nothing more than the shape of a line, the shade of the colour I am mixing and how the colour flows off the brush.

I see how students must have felt coming to my classes when I taught just art, and creative studies. The opportunity to tune out the world, focus on the small creative decisions, talk with peers, listen to music. Though my career has moved on from the art room it has brought back affection for those times when I would join my students when they drew, sketched and painted where we would all sit round the table together.

I used to have an Instagram account for my students and their artwork, documenting the work we did in class. It was something we could share with parents, students from different courses and schools looked at the work. Students used it to catch up with work, see examples of good quality work from their own peers. I have gone back to look at this feed with pride and a hint of nostalgia for the old days.

So is the art work hard- no, and it’s not being assessed! I don’t have to annotate my work, embed English or maths or even equity and diversity (even though my teacher super power sometimes wants too) there is no session plan is in sight- I just take part, do and enjoy.

What can you find to do, that you just enjoy, without over thinking it, with out being over stimulated or switched on. Something that you enjoy, just for you. If it has an output great, but the experience is the thing, the rest and enjoyment you get from it, an added bonus.

Let me know what you do to get back to basics… whatever you do, enjoy yourself.

This was a blog originally posted on my previous blogging platform