VISUAL DIARY Project @ HSC Bensonhurst Senior Center.5 5/27/2021

 

HSC Bensonhurst Senior Center

VISUAL DIARY Project

Blog 5 5/27/2021

Today’s class is all about hands - we use them all the time but how often do we closely observe them? We shared one handed gestures at the top of class, the sign for “ok”, “come here” and V for “victory”. The cross-cultural sign for money, rubbing fingers together was demonstrated and the Chinese gesture for the number 6. Fingers were used to call “come here” and to represent talking.

Our students submitted excellent visual diary dialogues after last week’s class, which we screen shared. Jin Wei used figures representing a husband and wife. He continued to look at his iPad with his feet up, while she waited for him, fuming. Julisa documented her younger sons playing on a seesaw. One begs to be let down while the other demands he helps with the washing up first. Her second dialogue shows her frustration with her son who explains he’s not talking back, just communicating. Her third dialogue depicts the love between her brother and herself with hearts going in both directions. Lao Yu shows how life has changed between 2020 and 2021 in her visual dialogues. In 2020 two friends talk on the phone about how the COVID restrictions are driving them crazy. In 2021 these same friends sit on a park bench enjoying the sunshine after being vaccinated. 

Pun added touches of blue to depict masks in her drawing which depicts the conversation between her cousin and her mother, the latter reminding her she still needs to wear a mask even though she’s been vaccinated. Her second drawing is even more personal, documenting the daily calls she has to her sister in Germany who had a bad reaction after her first shot. Ru Ping remembers her mother telling her and her siblings to look after each other, so her drawing depicts them checking up on each other. 

So Sim drew the conversation between her daughter-in-law and herself, “What do you want for dinner?” “Anything you cook, I will eat.” In her second drawing she documents a time in China where she was a doctor and telling one of her patients the good news that she was pregnant. Her third drawing depicts a figure doing Tai Chi in the park. Sook Fong’s granddaughter bought a home in upstate New York and invited her to join them. Sook Fong also goes to the park every day for exercise, where she is one of sixteen people who gather daily.

 

Stella’s daughter took her strawberry picking, so she documented the exchange between them and added a colorful basket of freshly picked strawberries. Susanna and her family went apple picking. She drew a child on his father’s shoulders reaching for an apple and on another tree, she carefully colored each apple. Hui Fen depicts care needed when crossing the street. 

Miu, who cannot join our class each week, but watches the recording, has not been able to submit her homework due to ill health. She is feeling a little better and sent us all her work for the last month, which we gladly shared with the class. She depicted the knee exercises she has been doing. It felt like Miu was there with us.

Participants used their non-dominant hand and outlined it in pencil in the back of their sketchbooks. Next, they outlined it with the Micron pen, adding details and features and then erased the pencil. We screen shared images of a simple method of drawing hands which broke the process down into geometric shapes and measured lines. Using this process and their hand as a model, the students drew another hand and a fist and the “OK” gesture. 

Ever keen on homework, they will practice the skills they’ve learnt by drawing an everyday gesture. We asked them to think about a gesture they have used recently and what they were thinking when they used it. Students will draw a thinking bubble or dialogue box to accompany their hand gesture drawing.