Rainy day supplies

Happy 4th everyone!

It's been forever since I wrote: third pregnancy and finishing off the semester took all of my energy. But now that I have some free time (ahem), very weather appropriately I decided it's finally time to share a summer supplies list. It should come in handy for all you heading out to vacation homes and encountering some cabin fever moments :)

I found that kids are always ready to come up with stories via drawings. My favorite drawing material (for adults as well) this past year have been oil pastels. What's great about them is that they act somewhat like oil paints, mixing one on top of another and creating great color combos. A parents' paradise too is that they don't smudge or make little artist hands overly dirty. No pastel paper is necessary for support, but tinted background does make things a lot easier for an adult artist.

 

Fine motor skills are forever useful, and a set of fine quality construction paper, a pair of scissors and some glue sticks will go a long way in perfecting some art projects.

Start with cutting out basic shapes, but then add finer details like ragged edges of grass, or patterns on top of a tree trunk, overlayering. Feel free to experiment with whatever scrap material is lying around the house like buttons, yarn, twigs and shells found outdoors, for more texture and dimension. It also might be useful to invest in a glue brush, and use Palmer's Glue for finer control of details.












Sculpting is an activity that can occupy you all for hours. The only problem with most sets sold for kids is that the material is either crumbly or unbendable, and it breaks just as soon as a figurine is built. What I found to work best so far is Sculpey III sets that are also sold in lots of fun color set combinations. Once the project is done, it can be baked in a home oven for 15 min, at 275F. These do need to be conditioned for a few minutes, the most fun way of doing it is with a pasta machine.

And though it's supposedly not recommended for children to use watercolor paints till the age of 12, we've had some very successful projects even by 3 year olds. Only mistake to avoid is buying thin watercolor paper, 90 lbs or lighter. I typically go for 140lb cold press sets, 9 x 12 inch in size. I also don't like spiral sets as pulling out paper is never easy. My favorite for both kids and adults are Crayola educational watercolor sets, and believe me - I compared them with Yarka boxes. They come with a pretty good round brush as well.

I know you don't want to spend too much time at arts/crafts stores, so these key supplies should suffice, oh and don't forget a large sketchbook, newsprint quality should do just fine :)

Happy travels and have a great summer!

Barcelona as inspiration - teaching children to view the world differently

I was lucky to finally make it back to Barcelona, Spain, a city where so many greats had started, and which even today proves to be a place of inspiration and innovation.

What had impressed me the most this time around (last time of course Antoni Gaudi was the focus) was the Fundacio Joan Miro, which I had missed on my last trip to the city.

I was especially taken with the incredible accomplishments of its education department. In the course of a few hours that we spent there, there were at least 4 different school groups passing through, beginning with pre-school aged children, and all the way to high schoolers. I went to the museum not only because I'm fond of Miro's work, but also because I was unsure as to how to approach Joan Miro with kids. How does one introduce abstract art with ease to different aged students?

What I had learned was that it's best to let them interact with the work as much as possible and use their imaginations to complete its meaning. Each of the tours I  had encountered, and unfortunately my Spanish was lacking to fully understand them, was nothing like I had ever seen in museums in US, where museum docents are simply being informative. Tour guides sought to encourage each student to communicate what he/she thought they were looking at, meanwhile carefully extracting what it was the kids were feeling as spectators while engaging with each piece, or color, or symbol.

We also spent a bit of time watching a video on Miro's life and work, and his goals for the foundation. His main idea behind the endeavor was to teach people a new way of looking at things. I believe the goal is certainly being accomplished there and should serve as a motto for every art teacher...inspiring kids to view the world through their own lense...

Tips for Parents: How to tell your child's work is created by your child....and not the instructor

Disclaimer: My sincere apologies in advance to instructors, who are focused more on results for the parents, rather than the creative process with the kids. I tend to subscribe to the camp of creativity, rather than perfection. Sometimes our end results aren't understood by the powers at be at the end of each class. However, it is important for me personally to know that the child had worked on the project himself, and there's natural development in his/her skills, rather than a forced vision of the world by the instructor.

So onto to the task at hand. I've been asked multiple times to assess how much involvement a child might have had with a particular finished product. Though surely some little artists are more talented than others at a certain age, here're age related benchmarks for physical development. These developments  had been witnessed in classes, but are initially based on the research by the famous Child Psychologist, Viktor Lowenfeld:









Age 3-4: Most children are still scribbling and some might begin to develop basic shapes, mostly circles. They have no concept of space or planes within a picture, or a developed human figure representation.

Ages 4-5: Shapes of objects are geometric, they float in space and sizes/proportions are subjective and distorted. Human form is being developed, starting from head/feet symbol, followed by inclusion of arms, lots of details will still be missing.



Ages 6-8: A form concept is developed but doesn't change much, base line establishment but no understanding of overlapping (tree in front of house), human figure consists of geometric shapes, no proportions.



Ages 9-11: Events are characterized rather than drawn realistically, no understanding of shadow, there's a beginning of relationships between objects, lots of details in the figure, but greater stiffness

Ages 12-14: Wrinkles and folds might be important, can zoom in or out, still only important elements drawn in detail, attempt at perspective, greater awareness of joints and body actions, sexual characteristics overemphasized

Ages: 15-17: Will begin to show light and shade, imaginative use of figure for satire, expressiveness and awareness of atmosphere.

Material exploration vs. progress

So my goal when planning the curriculum for the school was to make sure there're varieties of materials at hand and that at every lesson there's a rotating exploration of various art forms: painting, drawing, collage and sculpting... half the classes indoors and have outdoors.

This way kids never get bored, feel more open to experiment and discover hidden talents.

However, there's this constant demand for progress, and the trouble is that by the time a monthly rotation is over and we start on the same medium again next month - it often feels like they don't remember how to approach it and we're starting from scratch. To anxious parents who are trying to ascertain progress at the end of each class it also doesn't feel like things are moving fast enough. It feels like more of a jerky reaction approach rather than a program developed for long term natural growth.

But then I'm totally against a step by step demo class, and every time I show my own variation, they immediately copy what I did as opposed to turning on their imaginations or powers of observation. I really don't want every child to walk out with my version of a cat. I want them to observe the world and develop their own schemas that will remain with them for a lifetime, or change based on their changing perceptions of the world...not mine. And I don't want to be the teacher who says: 'You came here to paint, so why are you so focused on the sharpener?' I think sharpening pencils is part of the process of material exploration and developing comfort with the medium.

Also, if I prolong a project which half a class wasn't thrilled about, then it turns into the torture many kids associate with school projects and art is no longer fun and therapeutic like it should be.

So it's a constant dilemma and I know I can't be all things to all people, but how do I achieve this balance between teaching technique and providing fun variety of media?

Are we killing their imagination?

I'm amazed at the flight of imagination in most
3-6 year olds. Free associations abound, twisting, connecting and disconnecting at 100 miles an hour. A single sketch can have so many different layers that effortlessly succeed each other and just work. And then, abruptly, perhaps with the start of school, it stops.

The other day in class a 5 year old came up with 3 different variations of a zoo theme. An almost 7 year old copied exactly what the other child did as he couldn't imagine anything else. So sad.

The more they root themselves in the real world, the less their imagination roams, the more they become like us, adults, unsure of our beliefs, striving for perfection, afraid to let go. These free associations only visit us in dreams, or induced by hallucinatory drugs, like in the case of Dali and most Surrealists.

But am I partially at fault then for forcing the kids to pay close attention to details around them, instead of nurturing their ability to invent realities? Are we as overachieving parents , while pushing the kids to study the tangible, scientific truths earlier and earlier - killing their innocence prematurely? Should I help the kids complete their imaginary realms rather than attempt to ground them? If they allow their imagination to flourish, then perhaps it will live a bit longer, perhaps as adults they'll have an easier time summoning it? Perhaps they won't have such difficulties returning to purity? Like all us artists do?

Template projects for children

So of course my imagination doesn't run wild all the time and I have to resort to checking various project ideas on the web. Also because I'm strong in some things and haven't used other media in some time - I go ahead and try various suggested lessons on my students.

Perhaps I deal with a much younger audience and simply miss the point, but I'm getting more and more frustrated with the prevalence of follow me instructions. If the main goal of an art teacher is to develop creative thinking - then why do all Monet ponds in one class have to end up looking almost identical?


Yes, if we're raising robots, then they should simply follow step 1, 2, 15, 20. But with excited kids full of raw emotions shouldn't their imagination play a certain part in the process, shouldn't there be an element of media exploration, experimentation, flight of imagination? So what if it isn't a pond with water lillies a la Monet that will look perfect for when the parents come in to look at it? What if it's a farm, or a zoo, or a cave with dragons? At least you see real personal interest there and not a follow along manual.

And yes, I know that with age children's minds cannot roam as freely and they become as rooted as adults in the real world. But perhaps just in art class they can get in touch with their inner selves and be kids just a little longer?

The battle of expression and end result

So as I go on lamenting on my attempts to relax and let go while painting, I hold a class with a serious theme of portraits a la Matisse. Kids have fun painting to music, they get crazy to 'Loca Loca' and start dancing to Spanish rhythms while throwing paint onto their paper, arms swooshing, whole body moving and everything. I, in the meantime, totally freak out that my portraits are going nowhere and soon enough their abstracts will also turn into mud. I'm so dead set on my idea of how this class's project is supposed to look, that I can't appreciate these children's pure enthusiasm and excitement about simply painting. And yet, isn't this why we're here in the first place? To let them express their emotions in productive ways, to allow them to unleash their creative juices and simply enjoy the process?

We as adults are so programmed on end results that letting those shift is exceptionally tricky - so difficult in fact that many of us end up doing the work for the kids, just to make sure it comes out "right", in accordance with our  standards.

My son brings home ceramic plates, jugs and animals that they supposedly make in day care. Except he doesn't even recognize them as his, and we both know he's not at that level of sculpting - his art teacher does everything for him. And what is the purpose of such an art class?

What about you - can you appreciate the process or do you get upset when the end result is nothing to write home about in works by your kids?

Or in general, can we as adults simply relax and enjoy the act of doing something without it having to result in something grand?
___

photos copyright Anna Kreslavskaya

Personal styles at the age of 4

We as artists are always encouraged to develop a style of our own, so that a gallerist who looks at one piece of our oeuvre is able to recognize the artist hand behind it straight away. It's quite difficult to arrive at, especially after years of mimicking the masters and looking at art from all ages, styles and locales.

But I'm seeing that with children it's a natural phenomena. A particular sensibility to color choices and application is there from the get go and it only reinforces over time. One can argue that it's a schema that they have developed and is getting perfected with each new drawing. But I truly think it's more than that. We each have an inner palette, all our own.

No matter how many variations I mix and how much I force myself to pay closer and closer attention to the surroundings, the resulting overall color scheme is always quite similar. Without noticing, my hand creates similar relationships time and time again.

It'd be wonderful to capitalize on this natural style that kids have, to understand it and to teach them to not let it go. But alas, as they learn more and more about the world, the fluidity vanishes.

What I won't do...or bylaws for my teaching proposition

When I was 5, I started to get into drawing. I found napkins of all kinds and drew little dolls on them in various costumes. My grandfather would make up where those costumes would be from, as in - this is the customary dress of the Georgians, or - that one is from the Republic of Congo, etc. I was ecstatic and wanted nothing less than to one day become a fashion designer.

Then, at the age of 15, seeing how my dream was so persistent, my mom found me an art teacher. He, probably self-interestedly or unknowingly, declared that in order to be a fashion designer, I need to learn how to paint everything - from still lives to portraits to landscapes, and so I did. And when the day came for portfolio reviews, I was welcomed with all kinds of scholarships and bells and whistles to different art schools, but none of the fashion design schools,. Apparently for that I needed to learn how to sew and actually present dresses, etc. What about the factories where that actually gets done? But whatever...

And so I had no choice but to become an artist. My official art schooling began. It was incessant figure and gesture drawings and anatomical studies interspersed with occasional self portraits, close copying of the Renaissance masters (no wonder I hate the Renaissance), and chiaroscuro based on photographs. Only once in my 4 years in undergrad were we given an assignment to paint the stunning Ithaca landscape, and only one course introduced me to various painting media. And of course not a word about the contemporary art market, or art careers, or what the hell you're supposed to do with your life once you get out. And I hated art school with all my heart - it just seemed so irrelevant, and dated, and exclusive. It simply pretended that all great art was somewhere in the books and slides and not all around us...

And then I did my Master studies and it was even more dissapointing. It was a degree in Arts Administration, but it pretended that only part of the art world existed, the one where everyone is poor and in dire need of fundraising and it made sure that the real art market wasn't touched upon. As if there're no auction houses, or art insurance or art fairs and successful galleries and artists. Meanwhile, I was managing a thriving art gallery.

So I volunteered in a community arts complex just to get back to the roots, teaching kids art - and yet again - arts and crafts galore: making Valentine's Day cards, and teachers sculpting pretty little things for the kids so that parents think their kids talents are advancing.

Well, enough complaining. Here's my proposition. How about we combine it all? Not just a museum school where students walk with sketch books and pretend to be the next Van Gogh, and not just boring academic still life, or fat nude models, or long stories about how this genius reached his peak of creativity? But a program where every class gives you a sense that everything is connected? That the world around us is forever changing and it's stunning in all its seasons and moods? That Picasso stole from the Africans, and that we can paint like the Egyptians if we wanted to, or like the Japanese with their screens and no three point perspectives, or the Indians with their stunning gold illuminated manuscripts? What if we could create new designs through learning about ornaments on mosques? What if students would see local galleries and art fairs in addition to walks through dark museums? What if they designed costumes for the next Nutcracker like Chagall and Dali did for current plays? What if they practice grafiti art? Somehow, especially now, when we become more and more removed from the natural world, sitting behind our computer desks and residing in virtual realities...our kids need to get back to the roots...