Over the years I've developed handouts for my classes. I almost always do revisions to the file and that's what I'm working on now. I continue to find mistakes and correct them... then new ones pop up! The technical things are fine, it's typos that I discover. Since I don't have an editor who double (and triple) checks me I just live with it and hope the students understand--and try again with the next revision.
ANYWAY, here's what I did for part of yesterday... diagrams of structure:
You can see from the X and scribbled out areas that I screw up when "weaving" with marker! It's easier to take out when weaving with yarn. With the diagrams, I just have to start over and hope I can stay in control.
I don't know if any of these diagrams will make things clearer than demonstrations or photos. I do demo of methods in class. In fact, I have a loom with a large warp on it that I do most of those with... easier for students to see what I'm showing, I think. I also have photos of detail in my handouts. But nothing takes the place of doing it yourself and seeing the results and, I hope, understanding what is happening.
Now... for a bit of springtime from the backyard:
I've been watching the budding of the small ginkgo tree in the yard for about a month now. About two weeks ago the buds were showing green at the tips. Now they're bursting out with tiny leaves. I LOVE them! The ginkgo tree is one of my favorites. There's a large one at my studio yard and a glorious one on campus at the university that I always enjoy seeing in the fall.
These were on the sidewalk at the studio last fall.
This is looking up into the big ginkgo on campus:
I've woven one small tapestry in the past with ginkgo leaves featured... don't have a photo of that on this computer... maybe I'll add one later if I can find it on the laptop at the studio. I turned it into a pillow--and gave it to a friend. I get to sit on it when I visit!
OK... later today... I found the photos of the ginkgo tapestry. First, here it was before it became a pillow. I designed it by doing a scan of ginkgo leaves with a piece of handwoven fabric from Central America--the leaves were laid on the scanner bed and the fabric placed on top of them.
Here's the pillow and the chair it rests on at Noel's house. The chair is a handmade one and as you can see by the spinning wheel, Noel spins (among her many other tasks!)
Don't be surprised if you still find errors. It seems to be one of the laws of the universe.-probaably an addendum to all in composing Murphy's law. We have, had and will have had each of the books corrected and copy edited by 6 people at every stage of the production. The printer copy reads it and we still find errors. Love ginko's i really want to weave them and use the leaves in my silver.
ReplyDeleteThat's so true, Kathe! In my MFA thesis (which was supposed to be printed with absolutely no errors) I found one years later that all of us had overlooked. Grrrrr.
ReplyDeleteHere is my problem. I don't want to pay for color copies. Do you copy these in color for them? I end up copying my diagrams in black and white and projecting them in color and advising them to go over the handouts with colored markers during class. Few of them do. Anyway, mistakes continue to happen. I fix one thing and mess something else up. Ah well.
ReplyDeleteI'm doing B-W now. I used to do in color but it's so expensive!
ReplyDeleteActually if you do the printing of the color pages yourself it's not that expensive. You can get a pretty good colour copier for 200-300 dollars. Paper is really less exspensive then what copy shops charge for it. I change out my handouts frequently-depending on what I am teaching. So usually doing no moore then 20 at a time. For adverts and brochures upgrade paper quality and for the most part your still doing small amounts of copying that inexspensive. Generally including 3-4 pages of colour in a 20 page handout cost less then 2.50-3,50 per student. The expense is in the time it takes to put them together.
ReplyDeletehaving students hand colour isn't a bad idea, because some people learn action, patterning, and movement.
ReplyDelete