#52 of 100 Creations in 100 Days: Playing with Glass

One of the bonuses of teaching art is that sometimes I also get to DO art in class, as when I do a demo. Yesterday when working with a private student, I gave her an assignment to draw a clear glass vase using pastels. We analyzed where the light hit the vase, where the reflections were, how the paper the vase was resting on affected the base, how the background worked, and more. She did a great job with that task, so I put water into the vase and we compared the two images. How does water affect reflections? I began a demo piece to give her more of a sense of what I was talking about and took the time to finish it after she left.

I'd never taken the time to draw reflections on glass before, so it was interesting learning as I was teaching - two of the true pleasures of teaching are having the chance to learn as I go and to have the delight of watching students learn too.