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! "
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! "
Excellent. I should stop restricting my son to Crayons.
ReplyDelete- Saravanan T S
Yes, please ! I will be curious to know how it goes...!
DeleteOh, wow! Cant believe 10-11 year olds can create such masterpieces...
ReplyDelete