Still life times six

I'm enjoying my work as assistant to the art instructor in Juvenile Hall. Part of my work involves sitting with young inmates and working on the same project they're working on. It helps engage them in the effort, demonstrates a spirit of cooperation and allows me time to chat with them about whatever comes up in the moment.

This week the instructor decides to offer them an opportunity to work on a traditional still life composition. They had pencils, markers and colored pencils to work with and could use either slick or regular drawing paper. I worked in my own sketchbook with black Sakura pens.

Juvenile Hall has seven housing units, of which six are currently in use. We rotated through the week and spent two hours with each group.

The first time I drew the still life I focused on the wicker duck basket and the fruit. I was simply trying to draw what, for me, was a complicated composition.



Two hours later, feeling rather spent, I only drew the tiny nutcracker image placed at the edge of the table.



Two days later, we were back. In the first session, feeling a bit braver, I drew the contours of the duck basket, grapes, pear, apple and teapot, and then Zentangled within the shapes.



In the next housing unit I decided to try some color with the Prismacolor pencils.



This morning we were on a housing unit that was so full of kids that there wasn't an extra table for the display so the instructor set it up on a small cart. This time I attempted the fabric and alluded to the cart as well.



Finally, also this morning, I drew another contour which I Zentangled again. I ran out of time on this one because a fight broke out on another unit and the entire facility was on lockdown. (sigh)



My biggest surprise was how much the kids enjoyed the project. They jumped into this activity and many made honest efforts to depict some part or parts of the various pieces in front of them. I was also a bit surprised to realize that I could draw the same thing six times without getting bored!