I’m delighted to share my experience as a teaching artist in the new community adult art classes available at our local community center, the Seaview Performing Arts Center for Education in our very own Seaview Estates neighborhood. Thanks to funding from the Vibrant Hawaii Arts Fellowship I received, I’ve had the opportunity to not only support my own artistic journey but also contribute to a diverse range of visual arts classes led by fellow artists in our vibrant community hub.

It’s been akin to planting seeds in a garden and watching what matures. This has only been a few months in, but the response has been so positive! My vision and personal goal is to create jobs for artists and offer creative experiences so that others in the community can benefit by making art. My hope is that this will be a way to build a stronger community by sharing ongoing creative connections.

The focus of my most recent drawing workshop was about how to draw and paint more accurately.

We warmed up with right brain exercises which helps the mind let go of the thinking side and move toward the intuitive side. I had my students get get their paper and pencil ready to draw, but and then asked them to turn their heads to look away at their other hand. They were then asked to draw blind contour drawings of their hands. They could not look at their drawings until they were done.

Then we shifted to drawing using direct observation to study some beautiful orchids I had just gotten at the orchid show in Hilo last week.  I had the students start with pencil line and do drawings of the flowers as accurately as possible. Afterward they could add watercolor wash over the pencil drawing to augment the drawings with color. My students created some beautiful studious artwork that I’m very happy to share. 

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