Welcome to Gaia! ::

Take a look at those red lights, green lights, blowin' my mind
I'll show you somethin' if you show me a good time

Wait a minute girl, can you show me to the party?
Wait a minute girl, can you show me to the party?

Adalaide entered the classroom nervously, not sure what to do. She'd not taken the level one class last year, and thus had to take both together this year. Which was fine, except she'd not had the level one class yet! It wasn't until tomorrow... which served no purpose except to make Adalaide feel incredibly awkward about being here! When the professor announced that this was her first year, Ada relaxed some. That made things... a little better. And Nell was in the class, which was great! She hurried over to sit next to her friend, noticing Cersei, who she recalled being at the Whomping Willow when she'd mentioned throwing Damien and Dominic into it first year. She gave both girls a smile and thought about the professor's question. Why had she chosen art? Honestly, it'd been because she'd dropped a couple courses and felt like she needed to fill the slots with something. Art was something she enjoyed, but more as a hobby. Still, a lesson in it couldn't be awful if she liked to draw, right? When her turn came, she blushed a bit. "I'm Adalaide Blythe, a Hufflepuff. And I chose Art because I love to doodle in my sketchbook and thought it'd be nice to have someone to actually tell me how to improve." That was true, of course. She did think it would be nice to have someone actually teach her how to draw well, rather than trying to figure it out on her own. And books on the subject were woefully unhelpful since they couldn't see her work and tell her what she specifically could do to improve.

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'As they tried to teach me how to dance.'

Adalaide took a seat in the classroom and had her supplies all ready to take notes and to sketch. She listened carefully to the professor's lecture, taking notes and thinking about which techniques she thought would help her the most. When it came time to actually start sketching, she sat for a bit, considering her options. She instantly knew she didn't want to try anything with the grid. It seemed too rigid, to forced. Her sketches already seemed a bit stiff. The motion sketching would probably be better, then. But, there was no real motion to sketch with here, so she'd have to try something else for now. She decided that the blind drawing might be interesting, so she started working on that first, and looked around. Seeing nothing that caught her eye, the Hufflepuff had an idea, and took out her scarf, laying it on the table, arranging it very precisely, and sketching that. She worked on that for a long while, struggling to keep her eyes off of her paper and on the scarf. When she was done, she looked at the finished result and... it actually wasn't half as bad as shed thought it would be. Some of the lines intersected weirdly, but it was a pretty solid drawing. She smiled, and decided that next, she'd do a contour line drawing of the Professor. She had done this type of sketch before, so it didn't take as long, and the end result was rather odd, but satisfying. You could tell who it was supposed to be, which was good as far as Ada was concerned, at least for starting out.

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'As they tried to teach me how to dance.'

Tanna walked into her now familiar classroom with her also familiar grin on her face. Seeing her students were all accounted for she walked over to her chalkboard and wrote out Sketching enchantments. Turning to face the class she looked over at her youngest sister, Chantale, making eye contact to ensure she understood her needed help before starting. "Hello again girls, I've been so impressed by you sketches and exercises over the past few weeks and as you can see I've hung a few of my favorites on the walls." she gestured to hung sketches from each girl in the class before continuing. "Today we finally get into the magic behind art, enchanting your artwork. You don't get into enchanting portraits and statues until after your OWL's I'm afraid but you do get something equally fun with your sketches. But you can't just draw and expect it to work, it needs to balanced and placed in perfect perspective for it to work else you'd have a clumsy and very odd piece of art.
First, draw the background scene which your movements will take place in. If the background is to move as well draw the changes supposed to happen. For example, if you're riding down a road and want to sketch the passing scenery draw the trees, buildings, animals, etc. that passes you by.
Second, the person or object you want to move needs to have an objective, where its going, what its doing, etc. A ball rolling along a road after being thrown by a child, a quidditch player flying in the sky amid the bludgers and other players, things like that.
Third, draw these actions. I know it seems impossible but draw the the first and end results of these actions: the ball that was seemingly rolling along has a child finally catch up to it, the quidditch player catches the snitch or does a loop-de-loop, whatever your heart's desire.
And finally, the fourth and last step is the imagine the the movements that you want, the story if you will, lightly tap your sketch with your wand and speak the incantation: Concio. Since I don't own a wand I've asked Chantale to please demonstrate. Chantale?" Tanna looked imploringly at her sister who blushed at being placed in attention but stood and walked over to her sister who handed her a drawn sketch. It was a relatively medium sized one but it included all the girls in her current class. The young Hufflepuff lightly tapped the parchment with her light colored wood and carefully spoke the incantation watching with wonderment as the girls came alive to smile, wave or give a bored smirk in a generally familiar way of one particular Gryffindor. With a smile the young professor hung her now animated sketch (gently of course, wouldn't want to disrupt the girls), on the center wall of her classroom before turning back towards the class.
"Thank you Chantale for the demonstration. Now you all are gonna attempt the same. It doesn't have to be a horribly complicated image just something simple enough for you to imagine. And for an added incentive, the first person to have made a successfully moving image will be awarded a prize and house points. You may begin!"

Tanna set up her classroom in the first few weeks she arrived back at the castle and was now waiting on the corner of her desk for her new set of Fourth Years. She had been thoroughly impressed and grateful for her last set and was eagerly awaiting the new. Seeing them arrive she greeted them with a smile and waited for them to take their seats before she began. "Hello and welcome to Art II, my name is Professor Ellis and I will be instructing you this year. To start the class we'll begin with the basics!" She went over to the blackboard and wrote in her curly script Basic lines and Figures.
"When you first start a sketch it is a good idea to lightly draw your lines in case you need to erase any later on. A big mistake a lot of people do when they first start the outline of a sketch is they typically press down to hard with their pencil thus creating a dark line and an indention in the paper. This will not only be hard to erase later on but may damage the paper because of the indention created. Start your sketch with a harder lead pencil or just not press down to hard when you’re doing the rough outline. Use basic shapes if you have a hard time drawing an object. When first learning how to sketch, most have a hard time getting the sketch to look like what they are drawing. One way to get your sketch started is to break down the drawing using basic shapes like so," Tanna picked up the chalk and drew an oval with four straight lines: three horizontal to depict the eye, nose, and mouth region while one going vertical to split the oval in half. She then drew a series of squares, rectangles and small ovals to depict eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.
"Another important measure to keep in mind is to visualize how you want your final drawing to look on your paper before starting your sketch in order to avoid coming too close to the edge of the paper or even worse, running out of room. Visually lay out how you want the sketch to look on paper then lightly draw the outline making sure to stay within an imaginary border. And finally, and most importantly, take your time when sketching. There is no time limit when it comes to creativity. I know sometimes you might get stuck, kind of like writers block, so instead of getting frustrated and feeling like you’re on some kind of schedule walk away – take a break. Come back when you feel better and if you still can’t get past that roadblock, set your sketch to the side and come back to it at a later date.
For the remainder of class I'd like you to do a basic sketch of your face and for homework I'd like you to find something, anything or anyone at all, to do a basic sketch over. The homework isn't graded its merely a tool to enable better understanding of what we do in class. When you're finished you may leave it behind or take it with you and leave."

I don't ever wanna let you down
I don't ever wanna leave this town
'Cause after all, this city never sleeps at night

It's time to begin, isn't it: Calm
I get a little bit bigger, but then I'll admit: Okay, what do I look like?
I'm just the same as I was: Fourth Years
Now don't you understand that I'm never changing who I am: Art

N E W L Y N | T A R A | V A S S
H U F F L E P U F F | B L O O D T R A I T O R | F O U R T H Y E A R

Newlyn was prepared this year. Professor Ellis gave long, detailed lectures, and notes had to be taken really quickly to stay caught up with what she was saying. When she was done writing, she began her sketch of her own face, sort of wishing she had a mirror. Alright, fair skin, long pin straight dark hair, large blue eyes, oval shaped face... Her own image began to take form on the paper, a little Newlyn Vass of her own creation.



So this is where you fell
And I am left to sell
The path to heaven runs through miles of clouded hell
Right to the top don't look back