This week we painted a winter landscape which will be the background for our collage next week.  We also drew forest animals to populate our winter scenes.  Before we began our final drawings, I had students do a drawing exercise.  I passed out reference pictures of the type of animals found in a winter forest and in the subnivean zone under the snow.  Students first had to do a contour drawing of an animal using their non-dominant hand, while looking very closely at the reference photo.  Then they did a contour drawing using their dominant hand.  There was a lot of grumbling over this exercise, but many students were surprised how well they drew when using their non-dominant hand.  In fact, the non-dominant hand drawings were often much better.  They were forced to slow down and draw what they saw, not what they thought the animal should look like.  For their final drawings, I gave students the choice of using reference photos or using step by step worksheets I created that break the steps down.