Cold, Grey & Overcast in Chengdu

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Well, the weekend is over and Monday is here. It is still grey and overcast. It rained during the night, but not hard. The weather is cool. Some people are wearing a light coat or two layers of shirts. Last night I sat outside watching the highlights of the Eurocup. It was not just cool but cold. My friend Urgyan sitting next to me was wearing a light wool sweater - almost unheard for this time of year in Chengdu.

The weekend was restful with somewhat of a late night on Saturday. I was able to get a lot of work done mostly on Saturday and Sunday morning. I have the conceptual plan finished for the next two lectures with most of the images selected but not yet moved into separate folders for the actual class presentation. That I will do tomorrow at the University. The subject of the two lectures this week is the Four Compositional Styles of Tibetan Painting. I have never really taught this subject before, not in detail anyway, so therefore I am not yet aware of the shortcomings of my methodology and theoretical system. The reactions and understanding of both the students and professors will be the measure of success.

For these lectures I will also be using the images in a slightly different manner. Where I typically show a painting and then move on to another painting, now I will show a painting and then multiple versions of the same painting but marked up, highlighting each of the unique elements of composition. In this way I'll be using the same image in different ways for a number of different frames in the slideshow presentation. (I find Powerpoint presentations too complicated for this type of classroom situation).

Also different from last year, the student handouts this year do not have as many pages and are not as detailed. The iconography course last summer had far more technical information and terms which were necessary for the topic. Teaching composition and style is a very different subject. It is more important to engage the students to actually look at the paintings and think about what they are seeing through the viewing of many different examples, allowing the natural patterns of the four compositional styles to become clear to the students through the experience of repeated guided 'looking.'

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