So as you guys may realize, I add my own illustrations to the blogpost now and so far I’ve been loving how it adds some kind of personal touch to the otherwise too-many-words-post.
When I picked up my pencil and started drawing again, I suddenly remembered about an eccentric art teacher that I had when I was in 7th grade.
I think most art teachers are generally nice, most of them really values the students hard work and gave their best input for the students to move forward. At least that’s what I experienced for most of my school years.
Except in 7th grade. There was this new teacher, let’s call him Mr.A, he was a 30 year old-something male with an art degree from the states. He spoke mostly English (his nationality is Indonesian), had this salt and pepper hair, quite tall. When you see him, you’ll definitely get that he’s an artist type despite dressing very formally when he teach.
At first we didn’t know what was coming since he seemed pretty normal. And because we only had art class once a week, we didn’t really get to know him.
I had arts as my extracurricular and I mostly remember being taught by other art teacher and he’s the best. So I remember him most of my Junior High School years rather than Mr.A.
So Mr.A was very talented (of course) and because he was quite quirky, art classes were not conventional drawing but rather he taught us history lessons and different styles of drawing.
One of those I remember was when he put an object in the middle of the class and we were instructed not to look at our papers and never to lift our pencils off.
I had this crazy talented friend, lets call her N. N was and still is very good at drawing, and she prides herself for it. (Probably I would too if I had her talent)
I submitted mine and the next week he gave our works back.
I was sitting next to N and I remember N cried so loud and when I asked her why she gave me her paper with tears falling down her cheeks.
It looked amazing like usual, but a big 50 with a bright red marker was on the paper.
She didn’t accept the mark and she went to Mr.A and she asked him why did he give him a 50 (passing grade was 60 at the time) and he replied that her drawings hadn’t mature yet and he didn’t think it’s a good drawing. He wanted to give it a lower score but she should be grateful he gave her a 50.
N looked so shocked as she sat down and she kept quiet the whole time, as tears fell down her cheeks.
And if you asked me, how did I do?
I got 30 if I am not mistaken 😂
Thankfully, we only got him as our art teacher for a year before getting my extracurricular art teacher as our main art teacher.
And also, thankfully, N still draws until this day and her talent grew even more.
That’s the thing about harsh critiques, it either made you a better person or made you give up. I was lucky I never pride myself in arts so I stayed true to my style and met supporting teachers my whole life.
When I decided to write however the way I want here, I also took that liberation to the way I design my blog too. The zombie design was original and not gonna lie, I’d met some harsh criticism too. But at the end of the day, we do what we want to do and we do our best.
See you guys soon!
That Sleepy Zombie's Blog 