observational drawing: where do we go from here?
I could talk about that guitar for two hours.
I was going to post something about how we take the skills learned in observational drawing (seeing, describing, discussing, rendering) and then we branch out into the different media.
Something about how drawing then goes to sculpture and collage and painting and modeling and etc.
Then I looked at that guitar and thought about all the non-art places it took us, too.
I remember kids not just looking at instruments but tracing them with their fingers, playing a real rock-band drum set for the first time (!!), arguing passionately about whether a piano is a percussion instrument (because the hammer hits the string! percussion!) or a string instrument (because the strings make the music! string!). Making models of human ears out of clay. Learning about how things are classified — not just musical instruments, but animals, plant, birds, fish. Doing experiments on how sound travels.
Children who cannot yet read or write a single sentence can make extensive notes by drawing, notes that they can read back to you days or even weeks later, knowing exactly what they were thinking about when they first drew it. Children who cannot yet read or write a single sentence can look through stacks of books and mark interesting passages for an adult or older child to read to them later. "I'm sure this says something about the viola! Read it to me!" Pre-readers researching.
Observational drawing is the first step along a path of art and expression — collage, painting, print-making, sculpting, modeling, and so on. For those of us who homeschool, it can also be the first step in hands-on learning.
Batik, Saxophone Player, by Eli, age 8
Related stuff:
Comics project: Inquiry-Based Learning
Art lesson: Observational Drawing
Benefits of observational drawing
Observational drawing with the young and/or reluctant: tips
Sharing our work: Observational drawings
Posted on Wednesday, February 20, 2008 at 08:19AM
by
Lori
in Art, Things to Make & Do, Inquiry-Based Learning, art lessons
|
8 Comments
Lori
in Art, Things to Make & Do, Inquiry-Based Learning, art lessons
|
8 Comments
Reader Comments (8)
He must have made it a year ago, but it still made perfect sense to him:-)
we would go on field trips with children as young as three years old, and they could look at their own drawings weeks later and talk for minutes about the details they remembered from looking at what they were sketching (boat, fire engine, etc.).
i do want to post about toddlers - i designed a whole program for working with ones and twos to prepare them for doing this sort of work when they were older. i promise to try to post about that!
i love that image of a 17-month-old asking to draw - wonderful!
okay, classification is a little fuzzy. but still.
that guitar (string instrument) i could look at for, like, 4 hours. it is incredibly rad. can i have it? you owe me a package anyway.
8^)
the best part was, they found it classified differently in different books! of course, we would never just give them the answer anyway - the whole point is for them to do their own research, argue their own opinions, collect evidence to support their arguments, etc.
but when the *books* disagreed with one another - well, there's no quicker way to open a child's eyes to the fact that what you read in a book isn't *always* true. you can't stop there. you need to find out the truth that satisfies you.
sigh ::of contentment::. that is *my* idea of good education. ;^)
um. i'm not sure that *particular* guitar is available. have tommy make you one!!! :^D)
and i'm sure you will eventually. *eventually*. get a package...
As soon as I read your post, Lori, I knew I *had* to write a comment because I still think about all the wonderful things that happened during our instrument project. Learning the instrument families --- no! Becoming *experts* on instrument families, learning how sounds travels, making the ears, the "Keyboard Controversy," all of it was amazing. It's all become a magical memory for me. One that keeps me motivated to keep trying projects in a public school setting even if it is hard and sometimes frustrating. One that reminds me all that children are capable of --- so much more than I sometimes give them credit for. One that encourages me to challenge kids. One that makes me mourn the loss of that class, and the simple fact that my own son will not ever get to experience that moment with those circumstances. (Although I hope to recreate it for him at home.)
Thank you for giving me another moment to relive that year!
I also wanted to share another story related to the "keyboard controversy." As estea pointed out, the piano is a string instrument, and, of course, we knew that as well, but the PROCESS they took to learn that fact was much more worthwhile for them since they had to discover it on their own. They learned so much more than how to classify a piano. They learned that everything written in books isn't necessarily true, as you mentioned. They learned how to debate. They learned how to make hypotheses and conclusions. (In the end, they decided that a piano was, indeed, a string instrument, BUT an electronic keyboard was a percussion instrument since it doesn't have strings.)
The story I was thinking of happened about that same time. A child in the class became very interested in the Loch Ness Monster. He asked me if it was real, and, of course, I answered, "I don't know. Why don't you try to find out?" So, he did! He checked out books on the subject, interviewed his classmates to see what they thought, and we probably looked online for information too. And then all of sudden, one day, his interest was gone. *Poof!* No more discussions, no questions, nothing. When I asked him about it, he replied, "Oh, I asked my dad what he thought, and he said it wasn't real. So now I know." And just like that, he lost so many valuable learning opportunities.
And now I've rambled for long enough. Thank you again, Lori, for writing about this!
xoxo