Observational Drawing for Fifth and Sixth Grade

Cassidy Young, Jin Yi Kim, and I have been assigned to teach fifth and sixth grade during this fall’s Saturday Art School. I requested the older group of students on our placement questionnaire due to the assessment I have made that I enjoy interaction with older children slightly more than that with young children. Thursday after completing our first in-class group interaction I left feeling a little insecure about the notions I hold of 10-12-year old children’s interests. Our group project involved drawing a picture to illustrate a story-time narrative prompt that was somewhat a kin to the Candy Land board game. I feel our age group of children are bordering their teenage years and while most still participate in play, make-believe, and discovery, it is at a richer, more mature, social, and scientific level. These are our Harry Potter and Percy Jackson readers, our iPod listeners, Minecraft building, Kobe Bryant and Taylor Swift fans. I hold that they are capable of negotiating more mature fantasy realms as well as adult concepts and circumstances and should be allowed some opportunity to express and think critically about what they are learning about life while still enjoying the innocence and shelter of childhood. After reading Smith’s Observation Drawing with Children (1998) I feel a lot more confident in my expectations of fifth and sixth grade as some of my notions were validated in the chapter specifically about our group of kids.

I agree with Goldstein’s (1977) approach to observational drawing as responsive drawing. Observational drawing requires the artist to observe closely details of the object(s) that may have gone unnoticed if not trying to represent them on paper. It also draws out the artist’s experience and or inexperience with the object by challenging them to recreate the unique, personal understanding they hold of the object. As explained by Smith (1998) “…a 7-year-old’s figure drawing carries sufficient information for her, but not for many adults” (7). Observational drawing is about communicating one’s individual experience with the object presented. As the child grows in age and experience, their representation of items they draw will change and evolve communicating new meanings representative of their collected experiences and knowledge. Smith (1998) explains the developmental framework of fifth and sixth graders as being “on the edge of adolescence…beginning to struggle with the inner conflict of establishing their own identities and becoming individuals separate from their families” yet also “scrambling for acceptance within one group or another” (86). I remember being eleven years old and making that conscious step from being a little girl who loved playing with action figures and stuffed animals to a girl who chose to play with make-up and listen to rock music like the rest of her friends. It was rough! It seems this is the age when many children trade imagination and make-believe for social activity and seeking out truths about life. Having realized that while reading and reflecting, I question how our group will tackle that challenge of provoking participation in creating imaginary worlds in a group of kiddos who may be experimenting with a separation from that sort of play.

Children's Artistic Development

The Creation of Imaginary Worlds by Claire Golomb begins by discussing the evolution of child art. I found that the imagery discussed in this chapter were all familiar examples of child art. The connection the reading made for me was how that specific imagery often falls on a timeline of common ages and experiences. Also differentiating mark making and drawing was helpful to know because I had always assumed children drawing were trying to depict something they observe. I had not considered that they were making marks just because they had recently discovered the crayon, pencil, marker, etc. could do that! I also appreciated the acknowledgement in class by Mrs. Brinn that age doesn’t always correspond with the stage of art making the child is at as speed of development into these stages varies from child to child. I know when I was four years old, I was drawing Fred Flintstone and Woody Woodpecker quite well. I was well past the tadpole and trunk figures stage at that age. By the time I was ten I could draw very realistic human figures and I continued to develop my art skills through high school. My friend’s daughter also excelled past the beginning stages of art making quickly. I believed she would do as well if not better than I did in art. But she is a teenager now and never really progressed further than where our book shows a seven or eight year old artist's skill to be. So I feel our reading this week gave structure and understanding of the progression a child makes when learning to create art, but I don’t believe I will I will tie on an age to that expected level of development. I also don’t feel inclined to believe all children who excel early in their art making will go on to become great artists, much in the same manner I choose to believe children who develop slowly may in time take their art making practice much further than a child who excelled early on. What a great revelation to have.

Fall 2013 M301 Saturday Art School

In the past I have used this blog to share experiences and things learned from prior courses. Mostly I have shared lessons learned from using new technology. You are all welcome to look at my prior posts if you like. For the duration of this semester I will switch my posting purpose to sharing Saturday Art School experiences. This is new territory for me as our class begins to study the evolution of children's art making and its function. I have very limited experience working with young children. I believe my comfort zone is helping older students: middle school through adult. I'm excited and scared at the same time at the task of caring for a large number of young children. I feel the experience may rid me of some insecurity I feel when viewing myself as someone capable of caring for young children. I don’t believe I have any problem doing so, but I have never been afforded the opportunity to prove it. I have no children of my own. Even though that has been my choice for a variety of personal reasons, I carry a suspicion that my friends and family who have or care for young children on a daily basis have little faith that I am capable of doing the same nor do I want to be bothered with participation in child rearing discussion or practice. This is probably an opinion I have projected on to them, but nonetheless it is an underlying fear I have that their assumption of me could be true. I hope my experiences here help me to not feel that insecurity anymore, because most people who choose not to or can’t have children are capable of caring for them and shouldn’t be denied the opportunity to do so based on the assumption they don’t like children.

Social Network Addiction at its Finest

I am here to admit an addiction I have to Pinterest. Pinterest is an online bulletin board where members can collect and organize images of things they like. Most images include a link to the website where the image originates. This site is an art teacher's dream come true. I have been building up my boards with reference images, lesson plans, classroom organization ideas, and personal favorites. I have included the link to my boards if anyone is interested in following me. If you are not a member and would like to join, comment here and I will send you an invitation.

Enjoy!

http://pinterest.com/visualartsgirl/

Kokomo Art Association Video

My fieldwork is finished with KAA. As promised I completed a video advocating their organization and calling out a need for volunteers. What I learned: DO NOT record video using a regular digital camera. My images are crappy in my opinion. I also need to make more effort learning the video software on our computer. Hopefully the next video will be better! Until then here is the first attempt...also consider the message, KAA needs volunteers. Contact information is at the end of the video!


Happy Holidays everyone!

Instructable Media Project

Hi! See, I haven't completely abandonned my blog! Currently I am in a methods course and an art history couse so we aren't doing a ton of tecghnology related things, but I will have a few things to share as I am creating videos and instructables online for the methods course.
For my Z533 Intro to Art Education course (that I drive 8 hours per week to attend in Bloomington) we had to create an instructable media project. I used an app called Frameograph on my ipod touch to compose my short video:



Creating this video was very time consuming as posing the materials and taking the photos for the stop-motion annimation proved to be a slower process than I was originally prepared for. The end product I think is very cute and I am proud of it, but I felt my instructable needed more content to communicate the process of the printmaking project more effectively. Enter: instructables .com. Using this website one can upload steps, photographs, and videos via the site's very easy to use online templates to share your instructable.

View my finished instructable media project here:

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-a-Print-Using-a-Carry-Out-Box/

Coming Soon: Documentary video advocating Kokomo Art Association

Until Then! Happy Halloween & Thanksgiving!!

Wintertime Blahs

Well, winter is here...with a vengeance. I'm heading in to an uncertain future.  Spring semester began last week and I can officially say I belong to Indiana University Bloomington now. I'm going to continue distance learning for as long as I can to save money. My classes this semester do not cover any new fun technology stuff, but I can share that I am completing them both online. I have no physical classroom to go to this semester. I'm hoping by the time I am ready to teach I will be able to teach some online as well. My advisor at Bloomington showed me there is a class I can take once I get down there specifically about teaching online. If our economy continues to get worse I think people are going to have to work more just to keep up with life..that includes college students. The online option has been a lifesaver for me. Without it I wouldn't be able to pursue my education goals at all because I have to work full time to keep a roof over my head!

Another little techy tidbit related to this semester...have you ever had a class that the required textbook cost over $200? I did this semester. I did a little research desperately trying to find a cheaper option. What I arrived at was to purchase a Kindle Fire. On Amazon the same textbook was available as an e-text edition for $60. The Kindle was $199. As a result I spent $61 more dollars this semester, but I'm sure it will save me at least that much in the semesters to come solely by purchasing cheaper e-texts. The Fire also has a lot of tablet-y features on it that are useful like e-mail, facebook, etc. If you aren't interested in having yet another gadget, you can get a free download of the Kindle reader app on your computer and read your e-texts there. Barnes and Noble has a similar app called Nook Study. I downloaded this app to my net book. It looks like it works much like Amazon's Kindle app, but I found Barnes and Noble's e-texts were higher priced than Amazon's. Also the app can't be downloaded to the Nook tablet devices. In the end, I'm happy with my Fire and recommend anyone hoping to save money on overpriced textbooks check one out.