New Painting Section , 5 week marathon

,... em... self-examination is probably not exactly the best thing to do just before beginning what my students call my Samurai painting section for the summer. We meet four mornings a week from 8am-12pm for five weeks. ( which would be only a little nuts for me, but I am also teaching an evening Art History for 6pm-9pm..)

Already, I am so tired that I can't feel my face. That said, I have hammered out some decent lesson plans to get the students up and running and the mornings go by quickly, as do the days, ... maybe I will sleep on Friday at the Dermatologist and later the dentist.. then maybe I can go to the openings I need to go to that evening.
My advisor said that it was good that I was cutting back and showing some sense, but little did she know that it was panic more than clear thinking that pressed me to make some cuts.. hey the cat feeds himself any way.. and I did brush him last week.. or was that last month?

These are mostly painting one students who are from schools other than Prince George's Community College, so it is interesting to see how my lesson plans that often thud in the spring and fall, find fruition in ..emm.. more fertile ground. It doesn't always follow that the accomplishing the learning objectives will produce good paintings, but they will at least have a good foundation to become great genius whatever artists later... The creative spirit of the artist arrives as it is, intact, fractured or inflated by bad teachers... like that line from All Quiet on the Western Front, "You are either alive or dead, you can't lie about that for long..." You can improve their skill set, but the magic is something they will have to do. and for them to see, they have to be present and leave their story behind...