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On Becoming a Student of Drawing, Part 5: Transformation

Posted on April 22, 2026 | Leave a comment

This post is part of a series beginning with Tales of a Sabbatical: On Becoming a Student of Drawing, Part 1. For February and March 2026, I was a student in CDSR 100 Introduction to Drawing (Continuing Studies) at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Throughout, I kept and analyzed a journal, in preparation for a Scholarly Personal Narrative (Ng & Carney, 2017) paper. The question guiding my research is: What are my lived experiences of being a student in a new (to me) discipline? I have posted part of my preparation, three attempts at narrative portraits (Rodríguez-Dorans & Jacobs, 2020) with reflection in the style of Brookfield (2017, Chapter 9). See

As I close this series, I will share my journal reflections from after our last class. First, I wanted to include a panel series of landscapes from Class #7. This series took me the entire 3h class period, and triggered in me an appreciation for repetition of images that speak to my heart. It’s a practice I have continued. This scene is a photograph I took standing on the footpath along Highway 3 in Osoyoos BC, looking South toward the US. It’s one of my favourite views.

Four panels of drawn same landscape. Distant mountains, water, then grass in the foreground.

Class #7: Practicing landscape with four mediums. Clockwise rom top left: compressed charcoal, conte, pen and marker, India ink (yes, India ink!).

“Which may be a nice place to segue into overall impressions of what I’ve learned about myself as a student. My goal was to connect my heart to my students, to increase empathy for learning. Learning is, at least for me, emotional. Deciding to attempt to learn something means acknowledging that there is something in me that could be more or different… it means being open to transformation. I couldn’t learn to draw without learning to focus my attention (on a line or shape or relationship), to see (a line or shape or relationship), to move my body (in a particular way using a particular tool) in new ways, to persist when things felt hard. I needed patience, got annoyed, unmotivated, extra-motivated, frustrated, joyful, inspired, surprised… all the feels! But that’s learning. I felt vulnerable — I had to acknowledge I didn’t know something, and lean into it anyway. To push through the discouragement when it didn’t feel I was making progress, and celebrate the littlest of wins.

Learning in class was essential to my sustained motivation and learning, especially through periods of discouragement. I learned more in community because I learned from my neighbours who had different past experience and goals than I did. They also pointed out strengths I didn’t see myself, and helped me celebrate the little wins (including ones I would have been too hard on myself to admit). And they used materials, made marks differently — their techniques were different and I could learn from them. The curriculum also exposed me to things I never would have accessed before, especially the gift of live human models! Which was a revelation that led me to try mirror self-portraits (vs. photos), and plan for en plen air landscapes.

I now look differently at the world sometimes because I’m thinking about the shadow or the lines or how on earth one could make that thing look 3D in 2D. I wonder in different ways, about different things. But practicing art as a place to feel, even through technique drills or repetition… perhaps even because of technique drills and repetition… this is a revelation to me. It feels like drawing, art, could be prayerful. That intimacy with creation, taking it in through my senses, transforming it through soul and then letting it move through me onto the page… just the idea leaves me feeling a sense of awe. And now that my art is just for me and for God, really… this learning is transformative in a way that anything I teach couldn’t be. At least I don’t think so.

Except it did transform me, to learn the scientific method as applied to humans, didn’t it. To learn how to see a complex human behaviour, and somehow come up with a way to distill it, try to capture it in a measurement, transform a human experience into numerical form, to patch it together in a story that tells us something about human beingness that wasn’t quite known before. I did learn to focus my attention, to see, to move my body (if learning software and calculations counts!), and to persist when things felt hard. It’s not as poetic, sure, and the results aren’t as pretty… but sometimes they are. And I guess that’s true for art too….

In art class, there were drills to “just” be able to use the tools and learn to see. That was transformative in a technical way. I felt more profound transformation when my art (drills/work) was engaging a subject matter I cared about or couldn’t help but care about: a human subject, my own image, a landscape I’d photographed. My heart, my emotions, my motivation increased – somehow those marks now mattered more. I was being transformed. Today I’m thinking about the intent of art… when it is intended to transform not just oneself (or lesser still to showcase one’s skills) but to transform those who receive it.. that’s what makes a piece (I think!) impactful. Or maybe one makes art to transform self, and if others are transformed, great, if not, great (Liz Gilbert’s Big Magic). Yet this is the (heart? dance?) art of teaching – we are called to create, to transform ourselves (to learn to apply tools) with full intent to transform others. Because learning is transformative in some way (even a little) or it’s not learning at all.

Hunh. More to explore here, that’s for sure. Research. Teaching. Art. It’s all creating something by observing and transforming those observations.”

Epilogue

The next day, my friend Lesley sent me this quote:

“A person who works with their hands is a laborer; a person who works with their hands and mind is a craftsperson; but a person who works with hands, mind, and heart is an artist.”

I’ve looked it up and although it’s widely attributed to St. Francis of Assisi there’s no evidence for that. Instead, looks like Louis Nizer wrote it (or similar) in 1948. Whoever said it, this progression captures how I feel about teaching these days, at this stage in my career. The realization of the fittingness of this analogy was made possible through this art class because it gave me such vivid experience of the interconnected movements of hand, mind, heart.

I am deeply grateful to the Instructor, to all my fellow students in CDSR 100, especially my closest neighbours, and to my encouraging family and friends (especially RAB and CER). And of course, I remain grateful for this spacious time of sabbatical, so I could rediscover the transformative heart of teaching and learning. It turns out transformation has always been central to my teaching philosophy. Yet I see it through new eyes.

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On Becoming a Student of Drawing, Part 4: I don’t like what I don’t practice

Posted on April 22, 2026 | Leave a comment

This post is part of a series beginning with Tales of a Sabbatical: On Becoming a Student of Drawing, Part 1. For February and March 2026, I was a student in CDSR 100 Introduction to Drawing (Continuing Studies) at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Throughout, I kept and analyzed a journal, in preparation for a Scholarly Personal Narrative (Ng & Carney, 2017) paper. The question guiding my research is: What are my lived experiences of being a student in a new (to me) discipline? What follows is part of my preparation, a narrative portrait (Rodríguez-Dorans & Jacobs, 2020) with reflection in the style of Brookfield (2017, Chapter 9).

I don’t like what I don’t practice… so I don’t see improvement so I don’t like it…

After class #3, I wrote: “Today I arrived in class a bit distracted (Olympic hockey!) which was probably a good thing (get out of my head). Class was highly structured, with a model, and [the Instructor] walked around commenting, praising, suggesting, and checking we were using a variety of media. It was, at moments, personalized, in ways familiar and new to me. After break, she came around to me while I was trying India Ink — which I was convinced I hated and wasn’t working. She asked me why and it was hard to put into words, but the shapes and lines I was making felt heavy, clunky, not right, “meaningless” I said eventually. She brought me up to her desk and showed me a specific technique – set of them really, varying ink saturation and brushwork. I noticed how she was holding her brush. First heavy for a light wash, then very delicate by the end for a more concentrated line of contour, then in-between for shading. I mentioned how she was holding her brush (by the end of it, like making a beak shape with her fingers) and she’d been surprised at the reminder — she’d forgotten (in her expertise) to articulate and draw attention to the position of the brush, the ink saturation… she called the class’s attention to the brush noting what she’d forgotten to mention. Those three small techniques helped me hate India ink a little less.”

A week later, after Class #4, I added, “I still don’t like India Ink and am losing interest in it…. I’m not sure why I say I “don’t like it.” Maybe because it just feels hard? Maybe because I have to do a few pages that look [poorly] to get one… that doesn’t look, at a glance, terrible? I enjoy the mediums (like charcoal) where I feel like I’m seeing progress more quickly. I am ready to abandon the medium (Ink) where I see progress more slowly, it feels hard, I have a lot of failures before a little hint of partial success, and because of all that (and it’s messy — potentially disastrously messy) I’m not practicing it at home. Like at all. So YES the mediums that I practice using on most days are probably objectively easier, but they’re also getting practice. I am experiencing the motivational impact of trying something hard and not seeing success soon enough to sustain me. Students!”

Attempted drawing of legs using India ink.

Class #3, gesture drawing before targeted instruction. India Ink.

Drawing of woman seated leaning back, left leg extended forward and left arm raised.

Class #3, after targeted instruction. India ink.

Two stacked drawings using India ink of a man laying down in twisted posture.

Class #4. India ink.

Impact on my understanding of teaching and learning. This story of my reactions to India ink highlights, again, the emotions that are part of the learning process, particularly through challenges. This story also shows how sneaky the curse of knowledge is, and yet how vital it is that we seek to root it out through conversation with our students. While I was watching my Instructor’s thoughtful, personalized demonstration, I remember searching her movements for unarticulated secrets. I appreciated her deep expertise, so much so that I expected it may be getting in the way of our successful learning exchange in that moment. I think I give my students chances to catch me in such forgetting, but this is a clear reminder of how important it is to seek these opportunities and graciously embrace them (as my instructor did, who thanked me before announcing).

The continuation of my commentary about India Ink into Week 4 helps me recognize the looping links among emotion, motivation, practice, and perceived progress. From my experience, I am seeing that lacking perceived progress fuels negative emotions toward the target, decreasing motivation to practice, which decreases practice time, which slows progress further. I wonder if there is a learning theory that captures this process. Probably.
Meaning for my Practice. As I knew from the beginning, I see anew the importance of leaving myself notes of what I might be tempted to gloss over in my expertise, and keeping closely in dialogue with students about what and how they are practicing, what they are (and aren’t) noticing about my demonstrations. I could even ask “what steps do you think I took to do that?” which might reveal where my blind spots are, and/or bring along students who didn’t catch a nuance I meant to convey.

Drawing on Self-Determination Theory, I am also reminded of the importance of building opportunities early and regularly for students to build and name their competence, to build positive emotions (and stave off negative ones) and motivate practice. I can think of some ways I do this in my courses, including explicit statements like “remember how hard that was when I first gave you a problem like that” – which always gets at least some nods.

How do I build patience and resilience among my students, to make it through the challenges? That still seems to be a key.
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On Becoming a Student of Drawing, Part 3: Practice for Purpose

Posted on April 21, 2026 | Leave a comment

This post is part of a series beginning with Tales of a Sabbatical: On Becoming a Student of Drawing, Part 1. For February and March 2026, I was a student in CDSR 100 Introduction to Drawing (Continuing Studies) at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Throughout, I kept and analyzed a journal, in preparation for a Scholarly Personal Narrative (Ng & Carney, 2017) paper. The question guiding my research is: What are my lived experiences of being a student in a new (to me) discipline? What follows is part of my preparation, a narrative portrait (Rodríguez-Dorans & Jacobs, 2020) with reflection in the style of Brookfield (2017, Chapter 9).

Practice for Purpose

I chose to take an art class at Emily Carr Continuing Studies, I had hoped to take Watercolour Painting, after informally dabbling in that medium a couple of years earlier. Introduction to Drawing was the prerequisite, so I enrolled here instead. After class #3, I wrote: “Wow what a roller coaster of emotions. All week I’ve felt frustrated in my practice, like nothing I was making was any good, feeling like I didn’t even want to practice because why bother. In those moments, I thought of my students. They are the deeper reason why I’m doing any of this. So I didn’t try to dismiss or minimize my feelings, but I practiced anyway. Even when it made me want to cry in frustration. My husband said “but you practiced, and that’s what matters.” And I recalled my teacher had said “the only way to get better at drawing is to DRAW.”

A few days later, after a stressful event, I “found myself compelled to draw. I spent almost half an hour with [oil] pastels, drawing flowers not from still life but just for the pleasure of it. What I created isn’t pretty per se, but it’s also not black-and-white which is what all the mediums are in this course…. What matters for here is that I stripped away the homework and discipline just went back to the thing that I started with. Playing around drawing flowers. The technicality of drawing is intense, as I learned on Friday, and to get good at it will require loads of dedicated time on task. No surprise there — it’s a discipline like any other. But giving in to the urge to play in this medium this morning, without rules, helped me reclaim my sense of self, not so much escaping the [stressful] problem, but freeing my mind from it, relegating it appropriately into the background. I felt more me.”

Simple red, yellow, and blue flowers drawn in oil pastels.

What I drew that Monday morning (Feb 23). Oil pastels.

Ten gesture drawings of a female model in different poses, drawn using various charcoals.

A portion of time-limited “gesture sketch” drills from Friday’s class #3 (as referenced). Various charcoals.

Impact on my understanding of teaching and learning.After a week of being frustrated but encouraged with my practice, there appears an appreciation that deliberate practice over the long term is essential to improving in this discipline. This suggestion of increased patience with or resignation to the process contrasts with intense emotions earlier, and perhaps was enabled by an awareness that choosing to go off-curriculum (oil pastels for fun) can rekindle joy.

To this same reflection after oil pastels, I added: “Taking this drawing class is building my skills in sometimes boring and frustrating ways… but I’ll be able to use these skills to help me explore God’s creation and myself through artistic expression with more depth and beauty…. What I’m appreciating here is that class-based learning is fundamentally instrumental. It’s in service of greater growth potential. And I can’t dictate for any student what that growth potential will be… and they might not either.”

Two people’s encouraging words helped me persist, as did reminding myself of my bigger reason for doing this work: to be a better teacher for my students. This reminder underscores how important it is to help my students consider their deeper reasons for learning, to help sustain them when it is (perhaps inevitably) frustrating. Coupled with the invocation of my students as my reason for persisting through frustration, I’m reminded of the differences between intrinsic motivation (for the pleasure) and internalized extrinsic motivation (see Organismic Integration Theory, The Theory – selfdeterminationtheory.org and Regulatory Styles). Extrinsically motivated actions can be “integrated” such that people feel good doing them because they know it leads to an outcome they value, even if that action isn’t intrinsically enjoyable. I didn’t make that theoretical connection during the course, but I see it now as I piece together these vignettes.
Meaning for my Practice. That same week of reflection, I wrote, “I wonder if there’s a practice that psychology majors can engage in to bring them back to the things about humans that interested them in the first place. I’m reminded of artistic expressions of data. I wonder about incorporating an opportunity to reconnect with who they are.” I’ve already been working on that in some ways with my Researcher Identity Development optional project in PSYC 217 Research Methods.

What I had been thinking in this quote was attempting to tap into intrinsic motivation, but perhaps there is a deliberate harnessing of integrated regulation (or in that direction). Integrated regulation requires self-knowledge of one’s why, so maybe I can work to support my students in developing that why. My PSYC 203 course seems particularly appropriate for that self-knowledge work. How might I bring that into my statistics course?

 

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On Becoming a Student of Drawing, Part 2: Emotional Beginnings

Posted on April 21, 2026 | Leave a comment

This post is part of a series beginning with Tales of a Sabbatical: On Becoming a Student of Drawing, Part 1. For February and March 2026, I was a student in CDSR 100 Introduction to Drawing (Continuing Studies) at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Throughout, I kept and analyzed a journal, in preparation for a Scholarly Personal Narrative (Ng & Carney, 2017) paper. The question guiding my research is: What are my lived experiences of being a student in a new (to me) discipline? What follows is part of my preparation, a narrative portrait (Rodríguez-Dorans & Jacobs, 2020) with reflection in the style of Brookfield (2017, Chapter 9).

Emotional Beginnings

The night before class started I noted various emotions ranging from excitement and hopefulness, annoyance at the complexities of the registration system, “a little disappointed that the original teacher was swapped out last minute but open to someone new,” and “a little anxious about the other people – who will they be? How will they impact my learning?” I arrived to class prepared and early. The first hour “I am in my element” with familiar classroom guideposts including a lesson plan, syllabus, and paired introductions. Then we began drawing. At first, drawing our own hand without looking at it “is supposed to look weird” so that was fun.

First attempts at blind contour
8B pencil in 9×11 drawing sketchbook.

Then came the admission, while physically shaking, that

“the last 40ish minutes with timed gestural drawings [was] overwhelming! I almost cried! I couldn’t “do it” – shapes wouldn’t come – where even to start? What do I choose? How? and yes… everyone else LOOKED like they were so confident and skilled… and at the end their pieces were just so varied… and it doesn’t matter and it does!… Gesture seems like there was a code to crack and I couldn’t figure it out…. OH. MY. THIS. IS. A. LOT. Daily homework practice. Tempted, a tiny part, to back away.”

Best attempt at gesture drawing
Black charcoal pastel on 18×24 newsprint.

The next day, “recognizing I didn’t feel like I got enough from class to figure out what “gesture” was so I did what my students do – google! I get it now, why they do that. AND I’m also aware that what I’m finding on google might not be what this particular teacher defines as gesture. So I’m practicing, but am I practicing what I am supposed to be practicing?”

Impact on understanding teaching and learning. This portrait illustrates the intense emotions of beginning a new course. I experienced confidence from my fluency with classroom scripts, and comfort talking to (fellow) students. Yet asked to perform an unfamiliar discipline undermined that confidence severely, leading to intensely negative emotions. I criticized myself because I felt incapable, in part because classmates appeared confident. So often I have reminded students that classmates’ appearances of confidence does not mean they are doing any better, that they might be feeling just as uncertain. Yet my confidence, too, was shaken by trying something, feeling like I was failing, and looking to others who seemed to know more. The impact on my motivation “to back away” was real. I didn’t, perhaps because I’ve learned over time that negative emotions of fear and insecurity are part of the learning process, and the worst thing to do for my future learning is to avoid practicing. Then a curious thing happened. My teacher had not given me more resources to understand, so I channeled my fragile motivation to search the internet. How often have I cautioned against internet searching, because students might find something that steers them off (my) course? Yet my motivation was there, and tenuous. If I didn’t find some sort of support, I may have avoided practice out of frustration. What I found online (especially LineofAction) became a life-line of hope by offering more detailed instructions and practice prompts. Can the textbook be that for students? What about the list of resources I have curated?
Meaning for my Practice. This experience (and reflecting on it) has helped me re-appreciate how important those first few days can be for students emotionally, with consequences for their beliefs about their ability, motivation to persist through the messy first steps of learning, for social dynamics in the classroom, and for resources. What has become routine and even pleasantly familiar for me is, of course, not at all routine for my students. I will re-examine my pre-class outreach and lesson plans and supplemental resources for care for the potentially widely varied and consequential emotional experiences students may have during those first days. Do and can I build in students a sense of competence and belonging from Day 1? How might I counter inclinations for demotivating self-criticism from social comparison?
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Tales of a Sabbatical: On Becoming a Student of Drawing, Part 1

Posted on April 21, 2026 | Leave a comment

I have reached mid-career, and am on sabbatical — a precious gift of time to think big and broad about the nature and scope of my scholarly work. So far, my year has been transformative in many ways. Because, I believe, “we teach who we are” (Palmer), it is time to reconsider how my teaching approach and practice is being transformed.

My teaching statement was last revised when I applied for my last promotion, to Professor of Teaching. It was 2018. Before the pandemic, before spending 4 years as Associate Head for Undergraduate Affairs, before spending 2 years as a Senator, before the Indigenous Strategic Plan and Black Lives Matter movement, before my dear Gran died — before all my assumptions about how and why I do the work I do were challenged, uprooted, rebuilt, torn down, rebuilt. The gift of sabbatical has given me time to peel back layers, to rest, to heal and learn to keep healing “from the inevitable wounds of everyday life“, to question and ponder and explore ideas, to work toward an integrated sense of self. I went on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. I presented at conferences that took me from familiar London UK, to my first experience of New Zealand (adding a stop in Sydney for good measure). I’ve learned and explored outwardly and inwardly, seeking healing spiritually, physically, emotionally, and in relationships. Including my relationship to my job.

Last sabbatical I recalled the wisdom I learned at TAG (now CTLT) years and years ago (which I now realize probably should be credited to Brookfield): regularly put yourself in the place of learner. So I took a pottery class back in 2016, and wrote about it (see pottery | Catherine D. Rawn). Even without reading those previous blog posts, I remember regaining that disorienting and almost frightening sense of uncertainty, that ache for reassurance from the teacher, the hopeful thrill of attempt, the disappointment of failure and resilience in trying again. I did not keep up a pottery practice.

This year, I knew I needed to put myself in the place of classroom student once again. My goal was to rekindle empathy for my students. I’ve become keenly aware that the knowledge gap between me and my students is increasing each year. Although of course there is always more to learn about Research Methods and Statistics for Psychology Majors (i.e., the courses I teach most often, 2 sections each annually, for 15+ years), I now learn it from a place of relative expertise, which is fundamentally different than learning as a novice (references…). Yet my students continue to come to me as novices.

What I’m experiencing is sometimes called the “Curse of Knowledge,” which can be a tremendous barrier for educators, particularly as we develop increasing expertise (e.g., Shatz, 2023). Quite simply, the Curse of Knowledge means that once we really know something, we cannot un-know it. (See …add references… for elaborate explanations of this phenomenon.) To counteract this curse in the classroom, I rely on dialogue with my students. I am constantly asking them content questions, modelling, examining their work, and offering feedback as best I can, given our Teacher:Student ratio.

But although deliberate teaching strategies help me stay connect somewhat with their thought processes, I cannot anymore feel with my emotions what it’s like to look at an equation and not know how to read it. And as much as some educators might want to resist this idea, emotional reactions to content matter for learning.

This brings me to Drawing. For February and March 2026, I was a student in CDSR 100 Introduction to Drawing (Continuing Studies) at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Classes were three hours long, weekly, for eight weeks. There were 17 students in the class, from many walks of life, ages, and nations.

Part of a classroom with whiteboard and multiple drawing tables with stools.

Classroom shows the Instructor’s station by the whiteboard, and my neighbour’s extensive and well-used art toolkit.

I kept a written and photo journal throughout the course, but didn’t know where it would lead, so I kept it private. After a few rounds of analysis, I’ve decided to share a few portraits that capture some core learnings and reflections from this experience. In addition to informing my next teaching statement iteration, I am assembling them into a research paper. The paper I’m planning is a scholarly personal narrative, approached methodologically as phenomenology, using methods of narrative portraiture–which is completely different than the post-positivist methods of quantitative psychology I have used and taught for decades. The research question guiding my research is: What are my lived experiences of being a student in a new (to me) discipline? (Which could not, of course, be answered quantitatively.) For now, I think the portraits can stand alone as blog posts, which I will separate. Stay tuned! 

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