Date: September 8, 2018
The first week of classes is over. I'm taking five classes this semester: drawing, painting, sculpture, art history, and literature. The last two are the academic ones and they're not much different from high school, with assigned readings and a teacher reading off a slideshow. Blegh.
The absolute best part of the week was Drawing class. My teacher is a guy named Rudy Mendoza. I didn't think I'd ever heard of him before, but after he introduced himself I realized he was the illustrator for the “Petey Peter” books. I was freakishly into those books when I was a kid, so it was kind of amazing to meet the person who drew so much of my childhood.
Rudy didn't dismiss us once he was done introducing himself, either, not the way some of the other teachers did. Instead he told us to take out our sketchbooks and we spent two hours drawing a live model. Like, a real-life naked person, exactly how it is in movies. Honestly, it felt pretty weird in the moment. Kind of embarrassing, I guess? I felt like I was staring too much, and didn't really know where my eyes were supposed to be. But I'll get used to it, especially since Rudy said we'll be drawing from models pretty much every week for the rest of this year.
Of all the drawings I did in class, I think this one came out the best:
Even though it was weird, I'm glad that he didn't just send us home early. I feel like Rudy's really serious about art, and making us into good artists. I can't wait to show him what I can do.
J.