Ruth Ohi's School Presentation
Without a doubt, Ruth Ohi (
ohiblather's sister) was the talk of our school today. She had come at our librarian's invitation to do two workshops on book publishing and illustration for our Gr. 1 to 3 students. I had a chance to see her second presentation for the Gr. 2 and 3 students and to take some photos while I was there.
When the school librarian came to watch over my class so I could see that presentation, she had already seen Ruth's first presentation. Coming in my door our librarian smiled huge and said, "She's terrific!!" and as the day went on that was the general consensus from everyone. Ruth puts a tremendous amount of energy and enthusiasm into her talks and her love of writing and drawing shone through with every story she told the students. You could see the kids were entranced, too; Ruth's love of drawing was contagious and the kids were all mobbing her for her autograph even long after the lunch bell had rung after her second presentation.
When I first came into the gym Ruth was showing the students a PowerPoint presentation with many slides of the illustrations from her books and the many proofs and drafts she made of the drawings before they reached their final stage. She talked about her drawing inspirations and it was fun to hear her tell the students many stories about Sara and Annie, her two daughters, and how their lives inspired Ruth's writing, like the story of Sara running away with her little sister seen in the slide above. The kids also loved hearing stories about Sara and Annie's guinea pigs and their schemes to convince Mom and Dad to get them a dog :).
After the slide show, Ruth also showed them several editions of her books, plus the special proof sheets (I forget the actual term) when all the pages are together in one large sheet before they are folded into a book. A few of my Gr. 5 Korean 'English as a second language' students attended the workshop and they were thrilled to see one of Ruth's books translated into Korean! (they helped translate the title and the first page for Ruth :)) Ruth also answered many questions from students. My favorite was the girl who asked how she could become an artist with paintings that would hang in a museum. Ruth told her that she should take courses in Fine Arts, but even more so that she should learn as much in school as she could, take as many subjects as she could, math and everything!, so that she would have many, many things to paint about! (I find myself wondering if this girl may already be a gifted artist, as I noticed her teacher moved her up to the front close to Ruth's easel when Ruth began the drawing part of her lesson).
After the discussion, Ruth moved over to the easel and began to demonstrate a series of illustrations for the students. Above she drew a guinea pig and had the students give her ideas for how to dress him for skateboarding! She continued this picture with houses, trees, a moon and stars to show the students the importance of perspective and backgrounds.
Ruth drew several pictures to give the students some ideas and tips for drawing heads and facial proportions. The librarian liked this particular drawing so much that she asked Ruth to sign it so she could get it framed to put up in the school library.
Here's Ruth's easel after her drawing demonstration is over. At this point the seventy or so students are sprawled out with paper and pencils all over the gym practising the techniques Ruth showed them on her chart paper while Ruth went around to look at their work and encourage them. What struck me about the abandoned easel is how much it shows of Ruth's kinetic teaching style. Of course, there are her drawings of two super heroes at the top of the page, but even more telling are the ideas and scraps of art surrounding the easel on the floor. Throughout her demonstration Ruth would tear strips of paper off the bottom of the chart and use them on top of her finished artwork to experiment with clothing, eyes, mouths, hair, examining the results and sending them fluttering to the floor as she came up with another idea. I think it was quite the revelation for the kids (it certainly was for me) that art can be rough and tumble, paper doesn't have to be left pristine, that every piece of art can be the jumping off point for ten more expressions and ideas. Later you could see the kids gleefully pulling strips off their own paper to try different chins and noses on their own creations.
Here you can see Ruth again experimenting with facial expressions in both her art and her teaching :).
-Several- teachers came up to me later in the day to tell me how wonderful Ruth's workshop had been, once word got around that I'd known Ruth for a number of years. A few thanked me for recommending Ruth to our librarian (essentially, I simply mentioned in the staffroom one day that the sister of my music partner was up for the Blue Spruce children's book award this year and when our librarian overheard that she lived in Toronto and did school visits, she asked for her web address and took it from there). Ruth left quite an impression and there are already hopes around the school that maybe this won't be her last visit to St. Joseph!
Yay, Ruth! You are so cool. Thank you so much for letting me attend your workshop :).
ohiblather's sister) was the talk of our school today. She had come at our librarian's invitation to do two workshops on book publishing and illustration for our Gr. 1 to 3 students. I had a chance to see her second presentation for the Gr. 2 and 3 students and to take some photos while I was there.When the school librarian came to watch over my class so I could see that presentation, she had already seen Ruth's first presentation. Coming in my door our librarian smiled huge and said, "She's terrific!!" and as the day went on that was the general consensus from everyone. Ruth puts a tremendous amount of energy and enthusiasm into her talks and her love of writing and drawing shone through with every story she told the students. You could see the kids were entranced, too; Ruth's love of drawing was contagious and the kids were all mobbing her for her autograph even long after the lunch bell had rung after her second presentation.
When I first came into the gym Ruth was showing the students a PowerPoint presentation with many slides of the illustrations from her books and the many proofs and drafts she made of the drawings before they reached their final stage. She talked about her drawing inspirations and it was fun to hear her tell the students many stories about Sara and Annie, her two daughters, and how their lives inspired Ruth's writing, like the story of Sara running away with her little sister seen in the slide above. The kids also loved hearing stories about Sara and Annie's guinea pigs and their schemes to convince Mom and Dad to get them a dog :).
After the slide show, Ruth also showed them several editions of her books, plus the special proof sheets (I forget the actual term) when all the pages are together in one large sheet before they are folded into a book. A few of my Gr. 5 Korean 'English as a second language' students attended the workshop and they were thrilled to see one of Ruth's books translated into Korean! (they helped translate the title and the first page for Ruth :)) Ruth also answered many questions from students. My favorite was the girl who asked how she could become an artist with paintings that would hang in a museum. Ruth told her that she should take courses in Fine Arts, but even more so that she should learn as much in school as she could, take as many subjects as she could, math and everything!, so that she would have many, many things to paint about! (I find myself wondering if this girl may already be a gifted artist, as I noticed her teacher moved her up to the front close to Ruth's easel when Ruth began the drawing part of her lesson).
After the discussion, Ruth moved over to the easel and began to demonstrate a series of illustrations for the students. Above she drew a guinea pig and had the students give her ideas for how to dress him for skateboarding! She continued this picture with houses, trees, a moon and stars to show the students the importance of perspective and backgrounds.
Ruth drew several pictures to give the students some ideas and tips for drawing heads and facial proportions. The librarian liked this particular drawing so much that she asked Ruth to sign it so she could get it framed to put up in the school library.
Here's Ruth's easel after her drawing demonstration is over. At this point the seventy or so students are sprawled out with paper and pencils all over the gym practising the techniques Ruth showed them on her chart paper while Ruth went around to look at their work and encourage them. What struck me about the abandoned easel is how much it shows of Ruth's kinetic teaching style. Of course, there are her drawings of two super heroes at the top of the page, but even more telling are the ideas and scraps of art surrounding the easel on the floor. Throughout her demonstration Ruth would tear strips of paper off the bottom of the chart and use them on top of her finished artwork to experiment with clothing, eyes, mouths, hair, examining the results and sending them fluttering to the floor as she came up with another idea. I think it was quite the revelation for the kids (it certainly was for me) that art can be rough and tumble, paper doesn't have to be left pristine, that every piece of art can be the jumping off point for ten more expressions and ideas. Later you could see the kids gleefully pulling strips off their own paper to try different chins and noses on their own creations.
Here you can see Ruth again experimenting with facial expressions in both her art and her teaching :).
-Several- teachers came up to me later in the day to tell me how wonderful Ruth's workshop had been, once word got around that I'd known Ruth for a number of years. A few thanked me for recommending Ruth to our librarian (essentially, I simply mentioned in the staffroom one day that the sister of my music partner was up for the Blue Spruce children's book award this year and when our librarian overheard that she lived in Toronto and did school visits, she asked for her web address and took it from there). Ruth left quite an impression and there are already hopes around the school that maybe this won't be her last visit to St. Joseph!
Yay, Ruth! You are so cool. Thank you so much for letting me attend your workshop :).