We’ve been given the go-ahead to mount an exhibition of student drawings in the Medical School later in the year. This is going to call for a certain amount of long-distance organisation.
First off, contact all participants to get permission to use their artwork. Will they have thrown it away? Myself, I’m drowning in a sea of paper & canvas at home, but I do have a home to keep it all in. I remember the turmoil of moving from student flat to hospital residence and back, with the Mini loaded up to the level of the windows with Stuff. Then I moved to my first job & bought a stereo (speakers, receiver, Garrard deck) and it was even worse. At least an iPod doesn’t take up much space.
Next job: design poster & invitations….
Block 2 is now (as of 12 midday today) officially finished, the essays have been handed in and the students are off to their next posting. We managed to finish on a high after a slight blip in the life drawing last week. As usual with these things, the attendance falls off towards the end as people realise they have more pressing things to do, so last week there wasn’t anywhere to hide. With only two students left in the class I think they were feeling a bit exposed and a slight crisis of confidence ensued. I had been racking my brains (unsuccessfully) for a stratagem to get round this for the final week, but fortunately the class was back on form on Wednesday. We have parted friends, although I did wonder, after last week….
We’ve been assessing the students’ sketchbooks in the category of “use of learning resources”, but the standard has been so high that it seems a shame to lose them under a catch-all heading. I’ve suggested we could invent a sub-category exclusively for the sketch books, and this should be in use next year. To my surprise, the idea seems to be popular with the students as well (based on a study group of two).
I’m hoping that one of the students may submit an abstract for the Graphic Medicine conference in Leeds in November, although I think a certain amount of brachial manipulation (arm-twisting to you, guv) may be required. Let’s see what the essay looks like when it’s finished, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. More info from http://www.graphicmedicine.org/
Block 2, week 3 (or 2 and a half, depending on how you count it.)
I haven’t posted anything recently as I’m rather running out of new and intelligent things to say. The current batch of students has chosen interesting topics to write about (Death, culture & anatomy, and Neuroanatomy and illustration for patients) and everyone is doing really well at the life classes. There’s a good, relaxed atmosphere in the classes which (I hope) suggests that people are enjoying the experience even if/when the actual drawing is proving frustrating.
I may have said written this before, but drawing isn’t always easy, and surely it’s better to struggle and be successful in the end than to produce slick, stereotyped accuracy. After all, if you could get it “right” first time, and every time, there wouldn’t be much point in drawing anything more than once, or possibly twice. The more you look, the more you learn (cliché, cliché).
Our professional model was on holiday during the first week of the present Block, and one of the students from the last Block volunteered to pose – fully clothed, I hasten to add. She claimed to have enjoyed it (I was giving her a lift home at the time, so she couldn’t really have said anything else), and found it difficult – as expected – and enlightening – as hoped. It is a strange experience to have people staring at you intently, and recording their thoughts about you graphically for you to inspect. Somewhat analagous to being on the examining couch, rather than standing by it?
No new drawings to add to the blog this week, but the bunting was out again on Dr. Bellyse’s memorial in Audlem. This proably wasn’t anything to do with Dr. Bellyse himself of course, but it would be nice if it were.
Another day, another dollar (I hope – haven’t had a contract yet).
We are at the half way point of this year’s SSCs: the first module finishes tomorrow and the second begins next week, after yet another Bank Holiday. Several students have vowed to return to the life classes, even though they are moving on to different things on Tuesday. However, their loyalties must be to the next teaching block (anaesthetics, audiology, General Practice etc.), so it’s debatable whether they will have time to travel, on public transport, to the Medical School after finishing at locations in other parts of the Potteries.
The life class produced yet more strong drawings, firstly from the model on the move, and then from a long pose. The movement drawings were particularly impressive. Feedback has been positive (to my face, at least!) with comments about the value of the classes in learning to look and see; the luxury of being able to spend 2 hours doing something quite different from medical study; and the benefits of experiencing a different kind of concentration and effort. Medical Humanities continue to be regarded as a soft option in some quarters (academic as well as student), but the work put into these drawings surely contradicts that. It ain’t easy…
An audit of last year’s students has demonstrated that they were “normally distributed” within the ranks of academic achievement, and at least one has had work published as a result of taking the Medical Humanities option. (I’ve forgotten whether the term “rank” is appropriate here – I do dimly remember having to rank results for statistical analysis, but it might have been for something different. Anyway, I’m not trying to imply that they’re smelly or rotten in any sense.)
So on to the next phase, and new students to guide through the minefields of wordprocessing and charcoal manipulation.
(And a Happy 90somethingth Birthday to my father, who qualified in Medicine in 1942, and whose copy of Gray’s Anatomy – now covered in trendy 1970s wrapping paper – has been worn to rags with 70 years of use)
A slight delay in posting this week as my computer is poorly. It’s been creaking for a while, but the stress of downloading various software add-ons to update Microsoft Office has proved too much. In a sinister turn of events, I can’t re-install any anti-virus software. Is this analagous to the phenomenon seen in bacterial culture plates, where the colony of bacteria produces a defensive ring around itself so that nothing else can get in? Do computer viruses do the same? As there’s yet another Bank Holiday coming up, I don’t think I shall be able to get the computer sorted out locally, and my Family Computer Adviser is several hundred miles away and rushed off his feet.
Last week’s life class went with a swing again, although the ambient temperature was definitely a bit chilly. Having mastered tonal drawing in 3 minutes in the previous class, the students had no trouble with negative space. I only wish we could use messier media and be a bit more adventurous.
The essays are also taking shape nicely, about which more later. There was an intriguing found drawing on the wall of the seminar room, just behind the door. Some sort of oscillating pencil mark, made by a very small person defying gravity?(or more likely something swinging from a chair).
