My philosophy is to instill a desire to learn about art and other subjects in my students from the youngest age possible. I believe when they have this desire to learn and their brain develops enough, they will have what they need to advance their artistic skill. Truly learning art takes many years of dedication and practice and if I don't give my students the desire to learn, they will eventually get frustrated and give up. I believe many of my students can love to draw and improve, but this is a slow process. That being said, I do not want my students to become artists (unless they really want to). My goal is for them to be able to use their artistic and creative side in everything they do. For example, we have all see boring Powerpoint slides at work. What if the person giving the presentation was more artful, more skilled with their words, more confident, more interesting? Another example is the politics. We have seen the power of creative ideas, well-organized planning, and persuasive speeches in the recent elections. This is truly the power of art. Dreaming up a perfect image filled with your ideas, planning the execution of the image, and using the image to persuade others about your ideas is all art. So you see, that art is not just about pencils and paintbrushes, it really is about thinking creatively and building confidence in one's ability to deliver ideas. This is what I want to give to my students.

Art (just like life) is not about copying a picture. To be truly successful in art and life, a person must have their own ideas and be able to convey these ideas convincingly and creatively. Some parents might think if their student can copy a picture very well, it means their student has learned art very well, but I do not believe that is the way for a proper long term attitude about art and other subjects. The problem with this idea is that it teaches the students to be a follower and not to be a leader. So, my art class is not just about basic art skill (which they will learn here), it really is about learning life skills and channeling them through art. Also in my class plan, I encourage my students to always add more details, content, etc. This is the role of the art teacher. I will generally push my students to improve different areas and skills each class. I will not, however, push them to copy my examples exactly. They are allowed to use them as reference, but I will push them to add their own content at the same time.

This is absolutely fine as long as you give me early notice so we can work on rescheduling at another date/time the same weekend. There are classes scheduled Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. You can see the latest schedule and availability online at www.XiaoDaVinci.com. If the class says "0 seats available" please email me anyway, since I usually hold one seat for my current students to make up.

At this point in their development, I would recommend just letting him try to draw a cow on his own and see if he can do it. Bringing him a book to show him a cow so that he can copy it may not be the right message we want to send. He has seen a cow before and he can probably represent a cow using simple shapes or perhaps in his own way. The idea is to let him exercise his brain a little bit before letting him copy other things. Please let him know there is no right or wrong cow and that he can just try and you can be happy with whatever he makes. This will help him to build his confidence to experiment and be more comfortable trying things on his own rather than running for help every time there is a small roadblock. I have some older students who are actually quite afraid to draw without a picture or model in front of them because they were most likely pushed a bit too hard by their previous teachers and/or parents about what is "right" and "wrong." So I would like to prevent this sort of reaction in my students and try to give them some confidence and credit on their work so they are energized to keep going down this road and be better students all around. Also parents should not "help" their students by drawing the cow for them—this is not really helping anyone. If the parents draw the cow for them, the student will not learn to do things on their own. Anyway, the point of the homework is not really about if they can draw a cow or not. The point of homework is to give students a chance to explore, be creative, and get some approval from parents on their bravery for trying something new.

For this age group, I will allow references since they will be trying to draw realistically and it is impossible to remember every small detail and relation of shapes. However, I would ask that students do not copy the cow exactly and try to make the cow unique and add their own ideas to the drawing.

I think the problem here is that your student is not confident in their skill because they may receive a lot of criticism from a parent or even a teacher. If we criticize the students, then we are effectively saying "you are not good enough so give up." I realize that no parent would want to say that to their child, but when you criticize in a negative way, that is essentially what they hear. To remedy this, we can ask the student to just try and tell them that whatever they do, it will be OK with the parent and with Hongyun. Their journal drawings do not need to be perfect, we just want them to experiment. Also, they can try to draw on various "scrap" paper like tissues/napkins, backs of receipts, old scrap paper etc. so they can be more comfortable with drawing first then after a few tries (or even a week or two of this), we can try the journal again.

Don't worry, this is normal for students that are new to my class. Most other art classes really do not care about the students' ideas so they never ask! I, on the other hand, believe that ideas are just as important as the ability to create a drawing to convey them, so I ask! This is actually quite different for most of my students and it takes them a couple of classes generally to understand what I am looking for. Art is not just about pretty pictures, it is also about how to deliver ideas confidently. Give them a couple of weeks and you should hear a difference!

VISITS: Unfortunately no. We do not have the space to accommodate visitors at ANY time. The classroom is just like any other class environment that is geared for art training. We do not believe "taking a look around" is a good way to decide whether a class is right for your student or not. The tryout class is reasonably priced at $25 for a full session. Keep in mind that the tryout class is a two-way street. Your student will decide if they like this class environment and I will decide if they are a good fit for my current student group. I generally look for the brightest students with the most potential for my type of training. If they are not ready yet, we can try again when they get a little bit older. PARENTAL SUPERVISION: To gauge whether your student is a good fit for our class, the student must attend tryout class without parental supervision. If your student is unable to work in a classroom environment without a parent's supervision, then they are not ready for this class at this time. In order to maintain high quality standards for all of my students, I need to ensure that each student understands classroom protocols (they usually learn this by Kindergarten). We can try again in a few months when they have had a chance to attend school without parental supervision.