Gordon School of Art Home Study Courses

6-7-96

Dear _______

After examining the work of your two children, I am struck by two things: high ability levels and a slight inconsistency of performance caused by an occasional tendency to rush or to stop working on a worksheet exercise or drawing line before it is mastered. Some of their drawings are absolutely beautiful; others are abandoned prematurely. These girls have artistic talent -- very good eyes and very good hands. They both have a tendency to draw too darkly on occasion, however, and I sense some impatience on both their parts. I am asking you to hold the line on them - making them stay with each task at hand until it is mastered. Judging by their overall performance, I don't believe it will take too much insistence on your part to solve these problems.

The occasional darkness of their lines is caused by too much tension in their fingers causing them to slow down their strokes and increase the pressure of their pencil points on the paper. They also occasionally tend to jump ahead with each stroke instead of maintaining their stroke positions at the same place on the paper for a full 7 counts. Have them correct the red circled exercises on their worksheets and red indicated drawing lines on their projects. I suggest they re-watch the video demonstrations for the worksheets they failed to graduate from and practice those exercises again. Also, check their work against the program standards in the manual whenever there is a confusion about standards.

In my experience, most students need to be continually prodded to perform at their highest levels, at least during the earlier stages of their development. Later on they will adopt the standards for themselves and be their own critics.

This review is not as negative as it may sound. Whenever I see high abilities like your daughters possess, I have a tendency to raise the standards rather than indulge in praise. They are both doing well. I also see ample evidence of good teaching. Thanks for sending such good work.

Sincerely,

John Gordon

Director:

Gordon School of Art