We’re focusing on the biological sciences in the natural world this year. I’m a great admirer of the sketches and illustrations in the notebooks of the great naturalists so that’s how I plan to integrate art. Our art teacher is a great help, and she started us up with sketching in pencil and our first exercise was to get a feel for the different soft pencils. The little panel we shaded in with B, 2B, 4B and 6B pencils is a nice metaphor for what we’re working on in middle school.
There was a bit of giggling though. Last year one of the poems presented was:
Said Hamlet to Ophelia,
I’ll draw a sketch of thee,
What kind of pencil shall I use?
2B or not 2B?
– Spike Milligan
This was just before we saw Hamlet in St. Louis. Though I don’t know if the poem make the famous line more comprehensible.
