我的小小天地 my little music

What we have here is a lively study made on a couple of bottles by YaoJu.It has a strong sense of presence in the sketch, a nice variation of strokes and shading to depict the subject and a good overall treatment of atmosphere.While most people are concerned about the neatness of the work, and use it as a basis of judgement of good work of children art or not, I think otherwise. It is more important to stimulate the kid’s keen observation and expressiveness, and build their sense of confidence in themselves, rather than achieving those ‘dead’ static ‘qualities’ we so often find in taught/drilled art classes. I call those fake achievements of art.

Isn’t it a wonderful painting by Helene?She was given a short demo on how to mix the greens based on yellows and blue (because she was not given any green to work from intentionally). Thereafter she was pretty much on her own.The short demo looked like this:As you can see, it bares no resemblance on what she had to observe and express.It is important that we as art educators, refrain from doing demos that provide clues to our interpretation of what lays before these young explorers. The moment some form of ‘answer’ is provided to them, you will find it amazingly difficult to work them out of it later. I am a big advocate of art as a fundamental building block in educating an individual. It is paramount to recognize that I do not have preconceived expectation of each kid on what they draw.So long as they get engaged, play seriously, and learn from their adventures, they will eventually go somewhere worthwhile and interesting. I consider myself very lucky to be able to participate in their adventure. Here’s a picture of what Helene was working on. What Helene brought to us is way more than just a photographic image of the subject. Bravo!

All of the kids are making great progress. Take a look at their fabulous works.