Creative Calamities

I recently read the book Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter by Liz Wiseman. A day later exiting my digital art class, I felt as though a door in my mind had been unlocked.

As an adjunct instructor at a junior college I have been struggling find that right balance between demanding too much and demanding too little. And racking my brain to find ways to motivate my sometimes unmotivated students.

The premise of Multipliers is that some leaders drain intelligence and capabilities from the people around them and others amplify it.

When I arrived to class I had no direct intention of implementing any of what I had learned recently learned, when a student who has been struggling asked a question. I gave him leading questions to allow him to solve his problem rather than answering the question directly.

So on to the next student who is quite capable but also quite lazy. He asked how to do something and I flat out told him, he should have known how to do this since the second week of class (we are in week 10). So without thinking I called over the struggling student and asked him to explain the technique, which he did perfectly. And he walked away with his often shaky confidence thoroughly unshaky. The lazy student sat up a little straighter after being shown, not by me but by a student with apparent capabilities below his own, how to do something. He went on in that class to produce his best work of the semester.

In a class critique of of student work I simply asked students what grade would they give themselves. If they declared they deserved an A, I asked if it was their best work. That exercise clarified the fact that that my expectations for what they were capable of was perhaps a little low. It also made them more accountable for their work and they seemed to change the way they saw the work. It was no longer simply an assignment in a class they “had to take” but now an example of what they were capable of, which they seemed to suddenly take ownership of.

I teach a Digital Imaging course at a community college and lately I have been trying to show my students some more graphic was of working in Photoshop. The assignment was to use some stock art and create a fictitious magazine cover. Today I got to playing with filters and really had some fun. Unfortunately I can’t decide which version I like best.

Four versions of a fictitious magazine cover.

My father once told me that it is not a good idea to purchase a car in its first model year. Granted I am talking about something substantially cheaper but I just might apply that advice here.

I’d been waiting for the Wacom Inkling to hit the shelves and already seen myself sitting in Bryant Park sketching the carousel. The product faded from my consciousness after numerous failed attempts for find them for sale after the scheduled release date. The concept . . . sketch on regular paper with a special ink filled pen and receiver, and the images are saved as vector based images to be uploaded to a computer.

The video demo by Wacom (the manufacturer) makes it look irresistible, but so far on Amazon.com there are 32 customer reviews with an average of 3 stars. A video demo by V. Hutson sealed the deal, or maybe that should be, sealed the no deal and has convinced me to wait for the next iteration. If there weren’t so many other electronic “toys” out there I might be more tempted to purchase the device which lists for $199. But I think I will wait for the model to be released.