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Excel Instructor Kerren McKeeman on Art of the Sketch, a class offered on Excel China.

China is a country full of people who believe in “face.” Losing face, or dishonoring one’s family, wreaks more havoc in China than losing one’s entire fortune. Upholding a respectable image was as important in ancient China as it is in China today. From picturesque mountains to the most political of issues, China strives to uphold a reputable image. Even written language in China evolved from a set of pictographs. With this rich visual history in mind, what is the face of China today? This is one of the questions we will answer in Art of the Sketch.

During China’s dynastic times, it was a requirement of all generals to master their personal calligraphy techniques. All strokes of calligraphy are permanent—the artist cannot repaint a line after the brush has left the page. This encourages mental pre-calculation and confident execution of the stroke. It is with the same careful planning and confident execution that we take on Art of the Sketch. The goal of the class is to document our visual observations of China, and compile these images into a personalized portfolio of memories.

In order to gain an understanding of visual imagery, we will broaden our perceptive lens, learning to distinguish between line, shape, shadow/light, and perspective. Some days we will venture out to sketch our favorite view of the Forbidden City, other days we will become the subject and learn to replicate the mask of the Beijing Opera on our own faces. It may even be the remnants of ancient Chinese society mingled with the establishment of the new, modern, and commercial that grabs our eye. By the end of the course the students will have a collection of their own paintings and drawings that represent the face of China today.

Kerren McKeeman (Resident Advisor, Art of the Sketch): Middlebury College, B.A.; Kerren is an avid dancer, and enjoys co-directing and choreographing for Middance, a club that performs bi-annually at Middlebury College, where she also writes for the school newspaper and works as a member of the resident life staff. She is a graduate of the Middlebury Summer Language School’s intensive Chinese immersion program and in 2006 she spent the spring of her academic year studying abroad in Beijing and Hangzhou with the Middlebury College/C.V. Starr School. Before attending Middlebury she performed for five summers with Circus Smirkus, an internationally renowned youth circus troupe. Kerren is also an alumna of the Midnight Circus in Chicago. She is fluent in Mandarin.