Gonna be on the road again soon. Was drawing with ink and brush a little while back. I might do some digital inks on these later.

Responding to an older feller that was frustrated with young people in customer service jobs...

Being someone born in-between Gen x and the millennials...I would hesitate to lay it all at the feet of technology and it's cheap dopamine. As many problems as I have with aspects of the idea that tech will solve all of our problems eg nuclear powered AI...I might take it is as partly less young folks have been beaten into submission as some previous generations. Also expecting forethought from folks under the age of 25 might take some reconsidering. I vaguely remember my pops around the age of 50 being enraged that McDonald's had ceased to be fast food because an order took 15 minutes in the drive through. That was the early 1990s. A priest told me around the year 1998 that the world was ending...he died that following spring. It's not the responsibility of the youth to fix the problems, it is the responsibility of the folks old enough to have forethought to do the work. Without proper opportunity youth will find other outlets for that energy. We need to get past the idea that we are circling the drain and figure out ways to build things for future generations.

We tried using earth pigments to do some slip painting on cups and plates. Ceramics have been on my mind because we are firing our last load right now.

This is what they looked like before. As you can see the firing turned all of the colors earth tones. Which I was warned about, but I wanted to see what would happen. There is some bent appeal in the mad scientist aspect of being an art teacher.

There was still enough contrast that I still consider the end results fairly successful. The ages ranged from 4th to 12th grade.

The 4th graders were a rowdy bunch, but they also have a wonderful energy when they get in the zone.