u/teachatthebeach

I've been teaching drawing for a couple of years, and my school has a standard warmup format. Show students a famous work, have them sketch it in their sketchbooks Monday, write information somewhere on the page Tuesday and Wednesday (just copying information from a slide), answer a question Thursday, and add color Friday.

These warmup are BORING and STALE and kids phone them in. During October I do Inktober and the kids love it. I want to change up the warmup this year. For those who are required to do a warmup for your class, what sorts of things do you do? This is an upper level drawing class in high school.

We are landscaping our front yard right now. We just had our two oaks cut down because the roots kept invading our plumbing, and we are going to put in a few fruit trees instead. I'm thinking about trying to put in raised beds, but I have an absolutely anal HOA, and I don't want to attract their attention too much because I have illegal chickens in my backyard. So I want to think of ways to include edible plants in a way that is decorative. Does anyone do edible AND decorative gardening? What plants would work well? I'm thinking strawberries and peanuts in lower beds, including alliums like chives, maybe greens and rhubarb (the chickens eat them if they are in the back), and I'm wondering about maybe purple bush beans and various peppers. Not sure what else could work.

Thank you so much!

Edit: I'm so silly. I'm in zone 9 or maybe 9b, right along the gulf coast in Texas.