TRAVERSE CITY -- Hushed concentration punctuated by the sound of scratching pencils -- and the occasional ruffling of wings.
The students in the Birds of Prey Live: Drawing and Painting class were locked in as they drew Thursday afternoon.
The fourth day of Northwestern Michigan College's week-long College for Kids class welcomed Rebecca Lessard of Wings of Wonder and four live models: a red-tailed hawk, an American kestrel, a bard owl and an Eastern screech owl. The classes were held in Traverse City at the Kaleidoscope Visual Arts Studio of instructor Kathleen Hoagg.
As Lessard brought out the birds one a time and posed them on her gloved fist, the students worked to capture on paper the three-dimensional, breathing and moving model.
"It was awesome, much better than the stills (photographs) but a bit more difficult because they kept moving," said Logan Diebel, 17.
Already an artist, drawing birds was a new venture for Diebel.
"Personally I do more humanoid characters, more Manga style, but this animalistic realism is kind of fun," he said.
Being so close to these majestic birds -- rescued animals that live with wildlife rehabilitator and educator Lessard -- sparked the students' imaginations.
"It was really amazing because I've only seen these birds in pictures," said Clara Trippe, 12. "I think the difference between the owls and the hawks are really interesting because the owls are just kind of dark and the hawks are so elegant."
For the three previous two-hour sessions of the class, Hoagg guided the junior high and high school students through basic drawing, observation and artistic techniques. During the final session Friday afternoon, students finished their drawings and preserved them.
All week, Hoagg honed their skills of sketching what they actually saw, not a preconceived notion of a bird. Whether working from photographs, stuffed birds or live birds, she encouraged them to flicker their eyes back and forth from paper to subject. This technique helps students zero in on the details and depth that can bring the sketch to life.
"They are not drawing what they know, they're drawing what they see," said Hoagg, who emphasizes process and experience over a finished product.
When she designed the class, from the start Hoagg envisioned the students working with live birds. Having taught ten years ago with Lessard at what was then the Traverse Bay Community School, she knew who to call for help.
"It's a nice opportunity for the students they just don't get very often and I was very excited to be able to provide that," said Hoagg, who opened her Traverse City studio October 1. "It's been a very intense and focused group, a nice chemistry."
Impressed by the concentration and focus of the students during the two-hour class, Lessard was even more amazed by the work they produced.
"It is high caliber, I was blown away," she said. "It was really cool to see the students pulling out the patterns and the personalities of the birds."
"I'd like to get more into this because when you look at a wild animal with an artist's eye, you are seeing things from a different perspective," Lessard noted.
A veteran art teacher with a fine arts background and training, Hoagg had been teaching in the Suttons Bay Public Schools for the past six years. Budget cuts shrank her hours each successive school year so she began to examine her options.
Last fall, anticipating a full layoff, she decided to open Kaleidoscope Visual Arts Studio. When she continued to teach part time in the school system, she decided to go ahead anyway, helped in part by finding a bright, sunny space off of Woodmere.
"This is something I always wanted to do," said Hoagg, who has a master's degree. in art education and a bachelor's. in painting. "It was quite a leap, it took some courage I didn't know I had."
Offering a range of fine arts classes to students of all ages, Hoagg mines her background and training for each class. While providing guidance and expertise, she is careful to allow each student space to pursue and develop their own style and eye.
"Everybody's got their own individual vision and unique way of looking at things," Hoagg said. "I do not impose my idea on how something should look."
For more information on the Kaleidoscope Visual Arts Studio, call Kathleen Hoagg at 944-4913. For more information on Wings of Wonder, see the Web site www.wingsofwonder.org.
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