THE TASTE OF MEMORY.12 03/11/21

Today’s class began with a warm that each student led. After demonstrating simple physical actions, we can do using our legs, Karen invited each student to offer an individualized warm up using a different part of the body. What resulted was a fun 20 minute warm up, which prepared us to sit for the next hour and a half. 

 

Reviewing the homework allowed for students to comment and give feedback on each other’s work. Although they are active on WeChat after fellow students post their homework, this feature at the top of each class allows for more in depth self-reflection and constructive critique. Susanna, who cannot join the class in person due to family commitments, avidly completes all homework so it was with great pleasure we shared her artwork; an appetizer of stirred fried tomatoes, tofu and eggs, beautifully rendered. Miu is another student who is unable to attend class, however she always watches the recorded video and sends us her completed artwork. She chose a subtle pink color for her utensils and dishes for consistency in her recipe page, which described how to make a dessert, milk corn butter syrup.

 

Stella included a drawing of an open fridge to visually depict that the pork in her recipe needs to cool in there. Sook Fong animated her drawing by adding steam rising from the cooking pot, while So Sim drew the cooking pot before and after the lid was placed on it. Her recipe featured a special kind of mushroom which she shared with us. 

 

Ru Ping’s page featured a large white duck prominently in the top corner and redrawn much smaller and darker after it had been cooked. Pun added a knife in the action of cutting meat to liven up her page of drawings. Lao Yu activated her drawing by sketching ingredients poured into a bowl. She added a microwave and depicted the food cooking inside. 

 

JuLisa whimsically included cartoon drawings of herself cooking. The students suggested it was like “JuLisa’s Cooking Show” with all the steps of how to make the recipe and then the final TaDa! when the dish is cooked. Each ingredient and utensil were carefully colored by Jing Wei who also used shading to great advantage. Hui Fang also added humor to her page by including a brightly colored yellow apron and matching cutting board. 

 

Composition was the focus of the lesson, so we looked at examples of recipes which used effective methods to capture the viewer’s attention, while depicting the recipe’s steps in a simple manner. The interactive component encouraged students to comment on what they saw, asking them to describe whether the layout was horizontal or vertical, if any numbers were used and to what effect and how the artist made the recipe appear active. They pointed out that writing was used sparingly, bold colors helped to highlight a dish, arrows helped the viewer navigate the page and the inclusion of basic hand drawings were all effective methods. 

 

Now it was the students turn to compose their own recipe page. First, they rewrote their recipe, then cut out all the ingredients and utensils. While listening to music, they experimented with different compositions. As this process requires contemplation and is often best served by leaving it for a while then returning, we asked them to complete their recipe page for homework. 

 

We have such wonderful students who eagerly complete all set tasks and yearn for activities to complete outside of class time. We were heartened to hear Lao You express what many students have told us, “this class is very interesting...we like being challenged by our teachers..”