Art lessons re-visited

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Out of curiosity, I walked into an art school with K on Saturday.

I never really had the intention of signing K up for an art lesson, it was just an attempt to see if the art classes offered from this school was worth sending a child to. The trial was after all free, so the cheap mom in me grabbed the opportunity for K to experience a short session and to evaluate the programme.

The boy was very enthusiastic and gamed to attend the trial, since he tend to enjoy doing those paint art craft activities in those malls, and thought that this was something similar.

Before K entered the class,  I asked the lady at the counter area a whole host of questions;

Me : Can I know how are the lessons conducted?

Lady : We will show you the final product after the class so that you can decide if the programme is suitable for your child.

Me : Arhh.. isn’t art more about the process and not the product?

(After reading those early childhood art development books from Susan Striker and attempting many art activities with K from some of Mary Ann Kohl books. Hearing this words from her sounded the alarm bells in my head, especially when I am so influenced by these authors that art is ‘the process and not the product that matters’, when it comes to teaching art to young children).

Lady : (she looked quizzically at my comment)

Me : Oh ok, what I meant was, what is the structure of the lesson like? What are the children taught and how does the teacher teach them?

Lady : Oh 30 minutes, we will let the children do free hand drawing. Then the next 30 minutes of the class the child will do this activity.

The lady behind the counter showed me a A4 printer paper that was divided into half, the top part of the paper showed a black-line drawing of an apple, and the bottom half was blank.

Lady : The child will be asked to draw this apple, and use oil pastels to color the picture. Afterwards, the teacher will guide the child to teach some techniques of blending, just like these pictures you see on the wall. (She pointed to the colored creations pasted on the studio’s wall that were done by the other students)

Me : So what exactly does a child learn in foundation class, and then after that, what do they learn when they progress to the higher levels?

Lady : Foundation course is for kids between 4-6, where they will do tracing, follow the dotted lines in the picture, and then color in the picture with the blending methods that the teacher will teach. Then after that, when the teacher thinks that the child is ready, we will move the child to Level 1. They will learn composition, layering, and the gradation of colors. See this picture (she pointed to another set of pictures, with a consistent Orange in the middle of the picture, and the rest of the pictures was filled with the children’s own drawings). These pictures are from Level 1 and 2, the child will be given a picture with a line drawing of a orange, while the rest of the picture is blank. The child can fill in the picture with their own drawings and then blend the colors on the picture.

Right after 45 minutes, Kyle emerged from the class, and the lady behind the counter showed me his ‘product’ from the class. I was not able to show the picture on this blog (they are probably afraid of people like me, who will do this…heh). And what I saw was a nicely blended picture (right to left – dark red to lighter red, in 3 gradated shades) of the apple on top, and Kyle’s self-drawn and colored purple apple at the bottom of the paper.

Well, I squirmed myself out of not signing up for the classes, by telling the lady behind the counter that I am still evaluating which art school to send Kyle to.

I think if a child attends the class, they might eventually reach this stage of being able to blend an apple, or any other thing very nicely.

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Just a random picture of an oil pastel blended apple from google

 

I told hb that the experience was quite a disappointment, and his remarks were, “It is only $35.00 per class, what do you expect? Blending is after all still an art technique to teach the young ones. This is a supervised activity of sorts for the young children, you can’t expect the teacher to be passing down the technical details of art in that 30 minutes per lesson to the child. I hope you are not expecting that the teachers are art graduates or NAFA trained? Art is like how it has been in ancient times, children go under the tutelage of famous artists, who all then hand down their expertise. Teaching art needs a lot more time and effort on the part of the teacher.

I did not quite agree with the part about being an artist to teach a child art. I am not an artist, but I think using the right techniques + with the help of books, guiding K over time to build his creativity and interest for art is possible. I have after all taught myself to sew and to craft, and I think that can be considered another kind of art form.

So, I walked straight to the bookshop right after K’s trial session, to buy a box of 50 oil pastels for K.

Next up, art lessons home-learning style!

See this youtube video for quick tips on blending with oil pastels

See this previous post on picture books about art and creativity.

And here is a great article from Sarah of The Playful Parents on introducing the concept of geometric shapes in art, as shape is a foundational concept in teaching a child art.

 

 

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For us all

It was a moving marriage ceremony. A special day for a long time friend, whom I recently got in touch with.

Somehow, the memory our times when we were 17 years old never really left my mind.

Our lives intertwined for a brief moment many years ago, then we went our separate ways. And here we are now, fast forward 15 years.

The intertwining of our lives once again brings me joy knowing that God has blessed her with a loving husband, and the peace knowing for certain that she has surrendered her life to our Lord Jesus Christ as her Saviour.

Her story about how she met God is a stirring one. In 2008, she went to Israel with a church group as a non-believer, to take in the sights and history of the country. It was all a leisure trip to her until the day she was brought to the Upper Room by the church members. When asked if she wanted to have a baptism in the room, in her playfulness, not understanding the symbolism or meaning of a baptism, she indicated her interest. When the church leader prayed over her, she just lost control, fell to her knees, cried, and cried and cried…

What did she feel at that moment? Only she would know really. I know that in her own words to me, since then moment, life has never been the same.

I don't think it will be the same again for any other person that encountered God the way she did, in the very place that Christ had His supper with His apostles the evening of His cruxification at the cross.

Seeing her this morning, looking so radiant and resplendent in her bridal gown. I see the joy and the peace of God in her and it reminds me how wonderful a heavenly Father I serve. He promised never to leave or forsake us at every step of our life journey, all we need is to surrender our lives and trust in what our saviour Jesus has done for us at the cross of calvary. All we have to do is to surrender and seek Him, that's how wondrous yet simple the gospel of Christ is.

Just this year, I finally found my life verse in the bible…actually I am more greedy, I don't really have it as a life verse, as it is more like a chapter with all 38 verses in it :) It's from Romans 8

What's even more meaningful at her wedding was that she chose the song that I have been listening quite often to, since I discovered it beginning of this year. She told me that she haven't been able to find that march in song for more than 1 month. Somehow I just thought that this song might just for them.

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A song written and sung by Kari Jobe that was inspired by this verse from Romans 8.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?

Romans 8:31-32

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We are learning Art!

Most of us are used to the idea that we need to attend lessons to pick up a skill. Maybe it's in our culture or a mindset, that we can only learn from an expert or someone who is trained formally in that skill.

Ever since I became a full time mom, the mindset has changed and I have proven to myself that it is possible to pick up a skill without formalised lessons. I have taught myself cooking and sewing all through recipes and the sewing tutorials available from the internet.

This time, I am taking on another challenge. Teaching Kyle art, while also learning art at the same time. I took art for my O levels, but had very little interest in Still Art, which to me, was the dullest technique that I have learnt through through an art education. Maybe I am just bias towards classical art, or simply have little interest towards it.

It would have been a totally different story, if I read children art books from Laurence Anholt, Katie Series of books from James Mayhew; exploring artists from the Italian Renaissance to Post-Impressionism. Classic art appreciation did not quite happen for me until I became a young adult. Even till today, my preference for art strays far away from classical art, looking at my choice of art prints around the house.

To get our art journey started. I got a couple of children's books with the theme of encouraging creativity in art.

Top L-R  The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds, Ish by Peter H. Reynolds, The Art Lesson by Tomie dePaola, The Pencil by Allan Ahlberg, Not a Box by Antoinette Portis and Lines that Wriggle by Candace Whitman

 

Art is really all about the process and not the product. But it is hard to get a 4 year old to understand it. Kyle has been doing alot of open ended art with different mediums since turning 18 months old, but he has always been not too enthusiastic about the product he creates. So to help build his confidence and fan the interest towards arts, I went with a different strategy to get him to enourage his exploration of art.

He created these pieces with little encouragement needed and willingly sat through 2 full hours of drawing and colouring! It really amazes me how interest can encourage his attention span towards the activity.

The technique I used was to scaffold the learning, breaking up the shapes and the details of the picture step by step. This way, it makes it easy for him to follow and adapt his own preferences into the picture.

Since we have started on this method, he has been asking to draw every evening, and have asked to do more art activities. So I think it's time to re-introduce new open ended art experiences :), before embarking on some classical art exposure. From there, with the exposure, it will help to develop his preferences for art in general.

 

As for my art experiences so far, my preferences lean towards illustration. I have been squeezing whatever time I can find to doodle and colour into my sketch book. Learning slowly from japanese doodle illustration books, a doodle at a time.

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