Attempting a frame worthy painting !

We tend to think that children normally are capable of drawing only easy, smaller, simple pictures and that we have to show them "how" before they can even start......I tried a different approach ...
I maintain a collection of photos of places / flowers / anything that could work as a reference photo for a painting, and also newspaper / magazine cuttings. I let the children pick up a photo that they would like to draw. It is entirely their own choice and I don't interfere with my 'suggestions' of what might suit them.
I only make it a point to tell them that they shouldn't expect to to complete their work in one class (1 hour), but that they should be prepared to spend as much time as it takes to make a great painting.
After that, I let them pick their choice of medium ...pastels/ watercolor/ poster colors/ acrylic/ pencil /charcoal....(very interesting to note that most children think color pencils and crayons are not worthy of being picked up ! )
That done, they start off on their project ! My input after that, is to check on them once in 15 minutes to see how they are doing, provide a tip or two, show a demo of how else they could their medium, or just wait for them to call me when they are stuck...which , by the way, does not happen too often !!

This is the result of 4 classes of work - S. picked up this photo of a beautiful evening sky. She had an experiment sheet which served as her palette to test her oil pastels. For the silhouette of the mountains, I asked her to not use black, but to try and derive black using other colors. After a focused 20 minuted effort she had made 4 varieties of black , and had also duly noted all the color and the order in which she used them to arrive at the specific shade !!! That is amazing given she is just 11 years old !

Here is another picture...D picked this one from the collection. We chose to do this in watercolor. With this painting, we had some time to reflect on physics ! Drawing reflections and ensuring that the reflection was exactly like the original...! D tried his best to get it right...especially with mixing colors..at one point he was working without even lifting his head...so focused...muttering to himself on what would give him the right colors...oh, by the way, I restricted his palette to just 3 colors....he could use only red, blue and yellow...and had to derive all the colors  required to get the painting done. Most of the 'figuring out' was done by D...my main part was to instill some patience in the child ! I pointed out the parts which he had to paint in each class...this painting was done in 3 classes. Even when the painting was almost done..D would always find some or other part that did not look just right and would start thinking about how to correct it...and would try it. It was only when he was satisfied that he stopped and then announced...."I am getting that framed! "

The art of record notebooks...

What is it with parents and record notebooks ?
Every other parent  stopping by to inquire about art classes, want to enroll their child for the sole purpose of completing record notebooks in school ...I mean...really ?
An art class to help you complete record notebooks ? Really ???

I have done my masters in Botany ...and I honestly don't understand why you need to be creative and artistic to complete a record notebook ...!!!
The record notebook is to 'record' information based on observation , in such a way that when you come back to it at a later point, you have all the relevant information in there ...
of course we don't see it that way in school ...it is something that we need to get done, because if we don't, we wont be given any marks !
So anyway ...even if you're really into record notebooks, I don't see why it needs to be a work of art !!!

So what am I upset about ??
These children in my class never cease to amaze me with their creativity ... a couple of classes of giving them freedom to draw / paint whatever they want pushes them to experiment and express as creatively  ...
See my blog post @purple

They are great at colors, even better at freehand drawing. If they are not good at record notebook drawing...to me it just feels like maybe they don't like what they're doing or don't understand why they are doing it.
Yet, their parents invariably feel that they are not 'good at drawing' because they don't do a good job in the record notebook ...like that is some benchmark !!
I find it even more hard to understand why parents are so keen to pay for an art class so their can do record notebooks better ??? You already pay a bomb in school ...and schools are supposed to get the children interested in lab work and records ... !! Parents should be telling their children the underlying purpose in 'recording' ...and also that it does not need to look beautiful ..it must capture the essence of their observation of something.
So ..there is now a collective panic in the parent community that record notebooks are something to be dreaded, and they consciously pass on their dread to the children...and everyone now successfully fears the wretched record notebooks !!
The solution is push the problem to someone else.....the art teacher , of course !!!
The best course of action for the art teacher is to find the easiest solution to this problem which is to teach children the evergreen skill of 'copy art' ! This somewhat explains why many art schools hand children a picture which they then need to copy pixel to pixel.
That is what children need to master...after all they are going to copy from some artistic child's record notebook, so let us train them to copy, and save everyone from panic...except of course the children...who are now under a pressure to correctly copy not just in record notebooks but also in art class !! Great !!
(BTW...pssst.... children work their way around this ...by outsourcing record work to the artistic record notebook drawing boy or girl in class !!)

So were'nt Da Vinci's awesome anatomical observations the foundation for his accurate life like art.
Exactly my point .....he used his real life observations to define his art.
So should'nt children use their knowledge from life, and from what they learn in school and put it to good use in the art class !!
Is that not how it should work ???

Yet, children are completely cut off from reality ...ask any child to draw a house, and he would (about 98%) draw a hut ... nearly like this ..

WHY ???
All the children who attend my classes don't live a house like that. I bet they have not actually seen a house like that anywhere ...so why are they not using their real life observation to express themselves.
Simply because that picture of a house is the stereotype that shools feed  children right from pre-KG. Why ? because the teachers in pre-kg find it hard to draw a high rise apartment !! May be. or may be they are cut off from reality too ...because they are also a victim of the stereotypical art fed to them !

Well, yes, I am all for helping everyone all around get their record notebooks in order ...but not by copying. The real solution is to get children (and parents) to observe and then use that observation effectively and creatively. Easier said than done ...but definitely worth a persistent try.