I wasn't finished either...

 

Bottle and dead ivy vines, drawing on paper with lithographic crayons - litho crayons are very sticky waxy things. They're used in the lithographic process as the resist (I think) that the gum arabic doesn't glue onto, to create the crevices into which the ink can sink, and then the litho print is made by putting the paper on the press and squashing it. There's more to it, but since I have never done it, I'll just leave that to the experts. 

We the painting students were invited to our professor's home to view artwork, learn methods for canvas storage, and partake of coffee tea and pastries. I was very happy to go along with them, even though I am not a classmate.

Offered for the tea was the most gorgeous honey. The bottle of honey glowed golden and almost frothy. This honey was not the brown liquid syrup of the Sioux  Bee variety. This was altogether different. I ate some off a spoon and thought about clover.

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Cream and sugar with the coffee of course. Coffee from a French press, so very nice.

I should have a French press but I do not.

I took these notes and sketches about the visit after the fact, and by that I mean today. Later that afternoon she and I were discussing grades and that grades are hard, because really, why are we being graded? To compare our present progress with the way we started out? Because I'm not sure I improved this semester. I thought of some interesting things. I painted outside my usual box and attempted to paint actual recognizable images versus fields of exciting colors. Grading art is not easy. I think that too. Eventually as a teacher I wonder, how will I assign grades? 

It really seems to me like a method to compare us. (But I don't compare to anyone in the other class, I'm further along, what I produce doesn't compare to what they produce, and we may not even be in it for the same reasons. Some of the students may be painting because they needed an art elective. I am painting because I feel like it. 

I thought at first about pass/fail, but that sort of doesn't take into account the effort some people put forth, versus the skate-by situation other non-failing but non-trying people put themselves into. So during the discussion about grades she revealed from a grading standpoint it would be helpful to have samples of my writing as well as artwork.

 

The wood rack is something one would store paintings in. It is a simple structure sized to the room used to store the paintings. We also learned about different formats for keeping inventory of our artwork, including an inventory which encompasses all the work, the name, date, price, who buys it, where it is located in the world, where it has been (so as not to show the work twice in one location) - this I believe should be an electronic inventory. There are also inventories which show that these works are in this room. In the East attic, for example, are these twelve. Those four are in the West attic, according to that sheet of paper, and they have each been exhibited in this coffee shop. 

Coffee shop!

Don't. Get. Me started. 

Attic spaces, it was also pointed out, will become refrigerators in the wintertime, and oil paints may be left in the refrigerator where they will remain wet.