He’s grateful for teaching because it makes him a better artist. “Students run into the same problems I do,” he explains. “I try to help them determine what their obstacles are, whether it’s perspective, form, or light  and shade. Each individual needs a new answer.”

During a two-and-a-half hour drawing class in Comiskey Hall, Fr. Iain makes circuits of the easels and drawing benches, working with each student in turn. “Be one with the pencil; don’t choke up on it like a bat. Make scratches all over the place so you’ll loosen up,” he says. Next to senior Adam Mills, he holds a sight measurement stick at arm’s length and shuts one eye, looking past it toward the model in the center of the room. Then he darts over to the model, breaking the figure into blocks, and back to Adam’s easel. “See how big your space is right here? If his head’s this big...shoulders this big...he’s never going to get on the page.”

He pauses behind a student working at a bench easel and kneels down to inspect her tentative lines. “Too small. Way too small,” he says. “Move from the middle down, then the middle up. Tick, tick, tick, tick. Good, good, good, good. Let me just show you.” The student gets up and Fr. Iain takes her place. “Tick, tick, tick, tick. Move it over. Bang. See what I’ve done? The rib cage does this...the head does this.” His commentary is sprinkled with anatomical terms, invented words, an occasional bar of hummed notes to accompany his quick pencil strokes.

“It’s intense,” says sophomore politics major Katie O’Donnell, collapsing on a red sofa outside the studio during a break. “He notices if you’re eight thousandth of an inch off!”

As demanding as her instructor is, Katie says, “When all’s said and done, we’re all taking that course because we want to be better at drawing, no matter what our majors are. I do cartooning for fun, and realistic drawing is something I want to be better at. By pushing us to that level, Fr. Iain definitely makes us better artists.”

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