Trying Online Version of My Sampler Class!
Kit Contents
Challenging times call for new approaches. I had a Sampler class scheduled for last week. Three folks were registered (I limit participants to four) for a 3-hour face-to-face class held in our dining room. Obviously, I needed to postpone that class. However, as it became clear our current “shelter in place” demand because of the Coronavirus pandemic would not end very soon, I considered a different way to hold the class. The clincher was a family gathering we had using Zoom in which our son and family in Alexandria, VA, and our daughter and family here in Lynchburg, VA, joined my wife and me.
DIY sketchbooks made using cold press 140lb/300 g/m² Fabriano Studio paper!
After this family experience, I felt I could hold my Sampler using Zoom! I’m not new to online education, having earned a Masters Degree in highly regarded online program at George Washington University (Washington, DC) while working there. At that time (2003) networks couldn’t support video as well as they can now, so the video component is one with which I hadn’t worked. Well, I’ve now adapted former activities and created new activities and handouts for an online version of my Sampler class. All three participants were up to trying out an experiment of conducting this class online. For their willingness to do so, I’m waiving any cost to them.
The 5-color palette included in each participant’s kit.
Since they’re all local, they came by and picked up their art kits from our front porch. I finished putting them together on Sunday. Converting this 3-hour course to an online format has stretched it to 7 hours! I decided to set the class up in 35-minute chunks, since Zoom limits those with free accounts to 40-minute sessions. Then students will have 25 to 30 minutes to work on an assignment offline. They will return to the next online session and this continues until we end it with everyone returning to a final session in which they share their final assignment: an on-location sketch they have done of their house or something around their house.
Because of this lengthening of the class, I’ve broken it into two parts. The first one will be this Wednesday morning and the second part will be Thursday morning. I’m excited to try this experiment! If it works out, as I’m hoping it will, and the participants feel it was a worthwhile experience, I may make an online version of the “Sketching & Painting Sampler” a regular class in my offerings! (http://www.boozphotolearningcenter.com/sketching-class-list)
