The Way They
It SEE A Book for EVERY PARENT About the Art Children Make Brenda Ellis
Newly Expanded Preschool Edition Art Instruction Plus Master Works
Contents
Page
Lesson
4
Materials
Section One - The Nature of Children’s Artistic Development
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7
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
It’s About the Process
Discover Art Project The Sky I See Project Mark-Making Project
10 13 16 19 22 24 26 28 30 33 36 39 41 43 46 49 51 54 57 59 62 64 67 70
Learning
Those Lovely Scribbles Playing with Materials Visual Motivators Auditory Motivators Physical Motivators External Motivators Colors
Dough Project
Identifying Colors Project Stream or Fountain Project Sounds Project Fingerprint Project Going Places Project Impressions Project Favorite Things Project Telling a Story Project
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
Curiosity
Adding More to the Picture
Inventing a Story Beyond Seeing
Me Project
Contour Project
Inventing a Language of Symbols
A Child’s Symbolic Representation Direct Observation Project
Opportunity Craftsmanship
Puppet Project
Cutting Shapes Project My Hand Project What I Did Project
Creativity
Invite the Story Visual Awareness Absorbing Pictures Art to Retell an Event
Plant Project
Story Book Picture Project
Trip Project
The Study
Visual Note Taking Project How Big I Am Project
Encouragement
Seeing the World Through a Child’s Eyes
Horizon Line Project
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26
Where Do They Go from Here? The Way I SEE It Project
Section Two - First Skills
78
Scissors
79 82 84 88 91
Pencil, Crayon, and Marker
Adhesives
Brushes and Paint
Bibliography
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Materials Volumes could be written to explain the qualities of various art supplies, but here I will simply point out the best supplies that will be found on most department store shelves. Do select Crayola ® brand crayons. Children three and under may need fat crayons, which will not break as easily in their hands. Crayola ® crayons are less waxy and contain more pigment (color) than other brands. Since getting color on the paper is what art is all about, it makes sense to use pigment-rich products. Prang ® and Crayola ® are good children’s brands for paint. Any paint labeled “washable” will have much less pigment and color brightness than regular paint. Washable tempera paints will seem gel-like, resulting in poor coverage. Preschoolers may not notice these differences, so it is more important to choose a type of paint that is easiest for your child to handle. Crayola® brand set of five brushes contains a nice assortment of synthetic brushes. The company’s other sets contain inferior types of brushes such as bristle and soft-hair, which I do not recommend. While any type of non-permanent marker can be used, my favorite for very young children is Mr. Sketch ® Scented Markers by Sanford. The broad tips are easy for preschoolers to handle and they smell like strawberries, grapes, and yummy things. Who wouldn’t like that? Fingerpaints can be purchased or made from household ingredients such as liquid starch or wheat paste. See the home-made mixture on page fifteen. Use Play-Doh ® by Hasbro or home-made dough mixture shown on page eighteen. These are easily manipulated and reusable. I do not suggest purchasing clays, both natural and polymer, which are often too stiff for small hands. Purchase copy paper from office supply stores. Use it for coloring, drawing, and painting. Children who spend much time on a painting will need sturdier paper, but in most cases, you can avoid buying expensive pads of art paper while children are young. Rolls of paper are fun and useful for preschoolers. Construction paper adds color to projects and is good for cutting and gluing, but not for painting. Here are the suggested materials for this book. Modify as needed.
Drawing Paper Pad, 9" x 12" Construction Paper, assorted colors Fiskars® Scissors, blunt tip Elmer's® Glue All, 1.25 oz. Crayola®, Washable Finger Paint, set of 4 Crayola® 5 Brush Assortment Finger Paint Paper, 16"x12" Watercolor Paper Pad, 9"x12" Mr. Sketch® Scent Markers Crayola® Crayon, set of 96 Crayola® watercolors, set of 8 A large roll of white or brown shipping paper and additional household items are needed.
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Section One
The Nature of Children’s Artistic Development Children’s art is often a puzzle to adults. By understanding why children make art and the nature of how it develops, we can gain a perspective that allows us to appreciate what they produce at any age. We will also gain confidence that skills are being developed even though a child’s approach may be highly unusual or individual.
Family Portrait by Ariel, age three. From left to right, brother, me, Mommy (pregnant), and Daddy.
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Let’s consider what children’s art looks like. Those who work with children will soon notice that children’s artistic talents progress through specific stages. The stages of development are as natural as progressing from a crawl to a walk, and when they are older, on to a 100-yard dash. We can think about the three, four, and five-year-old as being in the crawl to walk stage of artistic skills. In art, these skills first involve using the large muscle groups (arms). The child will then gain skill using small muscle groups (fingers). The paintings below show the two stages of development that a preschool child will work within: manipulation and symbolic. On the left is an example of manipulation of materials. The paint is put onto the paper just to see what it will do, with no concern for showing an object. Next to it is a representation of a snake. The child works at creating her own symbols that stand for the objects she wishes to put on paper. Preschoolers will bounce back and forth between these two modes of making art as they learn about new materials and develop a symbolic language.
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1
Grown–up Talk It’s about the Process
What a delight when our little ones initiate a creative project. I remember when my first child flipped an ice cube tray upside down and inserted his crayons into the slots to make a birthday cake for his stuffed animals. I was delighted at his inventiveness. I’ve pondered the creative aspect of children ever since.
Recently my niece told me of an experience with her three-year-old son, Tanner. He got the creative urge and wanted to make something out of a paper tube. So, they set out to make something with pipe cleaners, tissue paper, and other materials. The object they created had wings, antenna, and was quite colorful as she describes it. They had two hours of fun. I could tell she felt the satisfaction of giving him her time and attention. Her son’s delight with the results was obvious when he wanted to take it to Grandma’s house to show her. Imagine my niece’s disappointment to find that Tanner had striped the prized artistic work down to the bare tube by the time they arrived. But upon arrival, he asked Grandma for some paint. He spent another two hours painting the tube repeatedly, and again he was quite pleased with the results. In my niece’s mind, her time had been wasted. It is quite common for adults to think that the purpose for a creative project is about the finished product or the result. We all understand how important this little treasure was to Mom because it was a creation of her son’s and a symbol of their time spent together. Adults must find the courage to set aside such sentimentality for the greater purpose of understanding the needs of our children. Tanner had stumbled onto something quite exciting during his two hours with Mom that day. He learned to take a simple form and add to it in whatever ways his mind could come up with. His imagination drew from the wealth of stories read to him, visual experiences, and everything he knew about his world in order to make something entirely new that was truly his own creation. What an experience his mom had given him! Who knows what creative thoughts entered his mind as he rode to Grandma’s house that day? What else could it do? What could it become with paint? Children become quite focused when creating. For the child, it’s about the PROCESS not the RESULTS. This is old news in children’s art education, but not many art teachers or parents grasp the importance of allowing children to experiment and enjoy the process of working with the materials. I hope you begin to ponder the idea now. Watch your children. Think about what they may be learning through the process of what they are doing when they create. You can see that their minds are fully engaged, thinking, pondering, creating! You don’t have to identify the benefits or explain the results of their time to others. Just know that by allowing them to create you are giving them time to practice something good that they will be able to use for a lifetime. Children learn through the process of using the materials. First efforts with any type of material will be experimental and unlike the adult who may be focused on the end result, the child will be fully engaged in the process all along the way.
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Picture Talk
Ambrosius Bosschaert, Bouquet of Flowers on a Ledge , c. 1620.
The artist made a picture of bright and colorful flowers. Find a flower that is yellow. Find a flower that is red. There are more than flowers in this picture. On the tabletop is a black shell with white spots. Can you find it? Can you find a yellow shell? A little bug crawls out of one of the flowers. Where is it? Can you find a butterfly and a dragonfly?
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Discover Art Project Parent: With your child, explore the connection between real objects and objects in pictures. Gather objects similar to those in the painting of Bouquet of Flowers on a Ledge by Ambrosius Bosschaert. Shells, flowers, leaves, and bugs might be found. Allow your child to touch and explore the objects. Name the objects and name the colors. Use any descriptive words that come to mind. Provide crayons and paper. When working with children who have not made art in the past, model making art by drawing beside them, each using your own paper and making your own pictures. Do not draw on the child’s picture, but allow it to be his own. You just explored some interesting objects. Artists draw and paint those things on paper. Making a picture is a way of keeping special things near us. Draw a picture of some of the things you explored or objects you saw in the painting of a bouquet of flowers. Use your crayons on paper.
The crayon is held in place by the thumb and two fingers. Pointer finger holds the top and the middle finger holds the side opposite the thumb. See page eighty-two for further instructions.
This art was made by a young artist. Do you like the colors?
Parent: Your child just looked at a work of art and discovered objects that are both beautiful and interesting. By looking at pictures, especially art, your child will find reasons to make his own. He will pick up new information from pictures, make connections to things he already knows and sees in his own world. He will become familiar with seeing a three-dimensional world on a flat surface. Children love pictures of all kinds. Within their first or second year, they are able to connect real world objects to pictures of those objects and name them. Fine art, photographs, and illustrations offer a wide variety of visual information. A great book to look at is A Child’s Book of Art, Great Pictures First Words by Lucy Micklethwait.
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2
Grown–up Talk Learning from Parents and on Their Own
The BEST place for your child to learn is right beside you. A parent’s interests, talents, and abilities are meant to be shared with their children. Don’t worry about what you don’t know. Children love learning right alongside their parents, as parents pick up new skills. Parents teach children how to learn when they challenge themselves to learn new things and then meet those challenges with laughter and fun. Children learn by observing, listening to, and mimicking what adults see, say, and show. Be aware of your own perfectionism, expectations that are beyond the experience level of the child, and a too narrow focus on the end product. These negative qualities are ones that children quickly pick up when parents display them. Once children take hold of these ideas, they get discouraged and want to quit making art. Parents that model making art with a playful, light-hearted attitude show their children how to enjoy the processes involved. Children also learn on their own, through exploration and experimentation. We can teach them to be better learners by purposefully engaging them in activities that use both of these natural ways of learning. They will observe with you, then you will set your children free to explore (learn) by using their own hands and ideas. When working with three, four, and five-year- olds, keep in mind that the process of creation is more important to them than the results. It is also more important to their development. Do not cut for them, but teach them how to hold scissors correctly. Do not draw for them, but point out the curve of a leaf using your fingers to trace its edges. By allowing children to handle new materials and new information, they learn the techniques common to art. They acquire skills that they will not acquire if an adult handles everything for them in order to make it look good. Most importantly, when a project is completed by the child, he will feel a sense of accomplishment in the end that will generate confidence. Children learn best and remember more when learning is connected to an emotion such as joy or excitement. Close contact with an adult that holds, hugs, talks about, and gets excited about things seen in the world helps a child to remember his experiences in more detail. A baseball game viewed from Dad’s lap will make a more lasting impression than a game viewed while among a group of classmates, where the child experiences no personal interaction related to the game.
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Picture Talk
El Greco, View of Toledo , c. 1604-14.
This is a painting of Toledo, a city in the hilly country of Spain. It was painted 400 years ago by a man people called “the Greek”. In this picture, we see the dark clouds of a storm. The clouds block the sunlight. What words can you use to tell me what this sky looks like? Are the clouds big ? Are the clouds dark ? Are some parts of the sky blue ? Are some parts bright white ? Does the storm look exciting, dramatic, or calm ?
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The Sky I See Project LOOK UP! We might call the sky blue, but look again. You can see many colors in the sky. Do you see blues that are different? Do you see other colors? Many things happen in the sky that change the colors you see. During a sunset, you might see orange, pink, or purple in the sky. There are many colors in our world and they keep changing, so our world is always interesting to look at. Take your crayon box outdoors and look at the sky. Look in different directions. Find colors in your box that look like the colors in the sky. Then color a picture of the sky you see.
Hold a crayon like this.
The crayon is held in place by the thumb and two fingers. Pointer finger holds the top and the middle finger holds the side opposite the thumb. See page eighty-two for further instructions.
Below are pictures of skies that other children have seen.
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3
Grown–up Talk Those Lovely Scribbles
With the multitudes of “washable” art products available on the shelves of our local department stores, we can safely assume that mark-making (in places we adults don’t want it) is a common problem. The truth about this activity is that it is a necessary part of each child’s artistic development. Let’s look at the very real temptation that mark-making presents. Children are entranced by lines and squiggles, those magical marks that flow directly from their arm and are so clearly controlled by them. The joy of making a motion and leaving its mark behind to see is exhilarating! It is so inspiring that it takes no time at all to fill up an entire wall or one’s entire body with wonderful marks. Mark-making, more commonly referred to as scribbling, is a natural phase of a child’s development in the arts. One must first see what the materials can do before one goes on to representational drawing. The young child is not only seeing what the material can do, but is using large and small muscle groups to see what his arm and fingers can do. That’s a lot of experimental learning. When adult responses are negative toward this activity, the child could shut down a very natural response that is designed to develop eye-hand coordination. Think of mark-making as an activity that has little to do with making a recognizable finished product. Allow mark-making. Just as we do not stop a baby from crawling, we should not stop a child from mark-making, recognizing it as an important first step. Children can and should learn that making marks is a specific type of activity that they do in a specific place with specific tools. Just as Mommy cooks on the kitchen counter, and mixes messy things using a bowl, art is made at the kitchen table (or wherever) with art materials using a piece of paper. Sit down with your child, get out pencils and paper and make marks. See what the pencil can do. Put away art materials and bring them out again at another time. Children who learn to care for their art supplies, by using them in the way the parent has demonstrated in times together, can be trusted with more freedom. Freedom to use art supplies whenever the child chooses should be gained, and it can be earned by responsible behavior.
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Picture Talk
Stanton MacDonald-Wright, Abstraction on Spectrum (Organization, 5). c. 1914-17.
This artist made marks with beautiful colors. Can you find a circle that is light blue? Can you find a circle that is orange? Can you find a triangle that is green? Can you find a triangle that is purple?
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Mark-making Project
You can do so many things with your hands. You can scoop up a handful of sand. You can hold a spoon and maybe even push a button through a button hole. You can make art with your hands too. These children are making marks on paper with their hands and fingers. You can use one finger at a time, all of your fingers at once, or the side of your hand to make marks.
Tape a large sheet of paper (about 18”x18”) onto a newspaper covered table surface. Pour ½ cup of finger paint onto the paper. Allow a child to play on the paper to get a feel for what can be done. This is a very tactile experience and most children love it, although some do not like to get their hands messy. Children may choose not to make a representational drawing. It is good if they choose to simply play or manipulate the paint. This project is great for experimental play because the marks can be wiped out repeatedly for a fresh start. For some additional fun, you can use more than one color on any single work. Some children made marks with their fingers to show sunshine and flowers, below.
Finger Paint Recipes:
1. Boil liquid starch until thick, and then add tempera or food coloring. Or 2. Mix wheat paste (wallpaper paste) and water, and then add tempera or food color. The paint should be thick like pudding. Some people use pudding! Use slick paper like Reynold’s Freezer Paper or Butcher paper for best results.
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4
Grown–up Talk Playing with Materials
Part of the fun in art is experimenting with the properties of the materials. Children love to explore the possibilities. They find that crayons
are hard and make colorful marks. They can press hard to make a darker mark or lightly to make light marks. They have many color choices. Paint offers fewer color choices, but when colors run into each other all kinds of surprises happen on the paper. Applying color with a brush is exciting too. Dough is entirely different. It requires squeezing, pushing, and rolling the material. These are a child’s experiences. As they work, children are learning all kinds of things about the material and what it can and can’t do. Children may be so interested in working with the material that they do not make a “thing”. It is easy to look at the results and think that their time or the materials have been wasted. However, when a child is actually engaged in experimenting with the material, lots of learning is taking place. This child may make a “thing” the next time or the time after that. I do not push children into making a “final something” when they seem to be enjoying the process of working with the material. When working with dough, I like to suggest words that give children ideas for how to handle it. Words like squeeze, poke, pinch, and roll build a child’s vocabulary while giving them practical experience with this new medium. Allow children to play using just their hands. On another day, give them tools from your kitchen to experiment with. Children will model the kinds of things that they draw. A snake is a favorite subject because once the clay is rolled back and forth, the result is recognized by most children as a snake. This kind of discovery is wonderful. Do not feel that you need to suggest these types of ideas. Some children who have difficulty drawing will find that they are very proficient at modeling a three-dimensional object. Others who feel comfortable drawing may have difficulty forming an object from dough. They may want to flatten it like paper and draw into it. That is acceptable, but at some point, you will want to encourage that child to make a form that stands up. Usually, they will discover this on their own when you allow lots of undirected playtime. By allowing time to experiment, you will be helping the child to gain more experience and soon the one who found it difficult will have no difficulties at all.
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Pencil, Crayon, and Marker
Pencil Safety Teach children to be still when drawing whether sitting or lying on the floor. Teach them to put the pencil down before moving around. Never run with a pencil in hand. Never poke another person with a pencil. Teach them to use the pencil sharpener when you feel they are ready to do it correctly.
Holding a drawing tool such as a pencil or crayon correctly is necessary for ease of use and future handwriting skills. Have your child open his hand with the forefinger straight, the thumb up, and the other three fingers curved. Lay the pencil into the hand, onto the bending middle finger and between the thumb and forefinger. Have your child grip the pencil with the thumb and forefinger. Complaints about aching muscles indicate that your child is holding the drawing tool too tightly. Tell him to relax. To help him remember, say, “Don’t squeeze the pencil tight. Be gentle with it and it will be happy to go where ever you direct it to go.” When your child begins handwriting skills, it will be a huge benefit to have developed the correct technique for holding the pencil while drawing.
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Do you wish you could look inside your child’s mind to see what is behind the artwork your preschooler just handed to you? This book offers infor- mation on the first steps your three, four, or five-year-old will take when pursuing a creative life as it is expressed through art. • Help your child gain skills without drawing for the child. • Offer age-appropriate suggestions to encourage creativity. • Learn how to respond to a work you can’t decipher. • Encourage the use of fine motor skills using 36 projects. • Watch your preschooler draw inspiration from 26 Master works and numerous explorations of nature. “What I appreciate about Artistic Pursuits is it‛s ability to speak to an academic like myself while tying in the creativity of my children and expand - ing their scope and vision of what is possible.” Homeschool Parent – Cherie Jorgensen / New Mexico “From the first page of The Way They SEE It, parents receive great insight into the artistic development of young children. In addition, Ellis offers practical sound advice in regards to art supplies.. Comparing my student‛s experiences helped me realize the beauty of the flexibility of the projects. Whether you have a speedy artist or a child who wishes to create art for hours on end, the projects are easily adapted to satisfy each personality.” Homeschool Parent - Regenia Spoerndle / Ohio “The little kids loved it and so did I. We spent a nice time together talking and being creative. I really enjoyed the parent discussion that teaches us parents the process and methods to help us understand our children's art better.” Homeschool Parent – Katie Corbett “I like that I got to draw outside…because I drew so beautifully. I was able to look at everything.” Homeschooler, age 4 – Alyssa Masters
Use this book again and again! Non-consumable
The Way They SEE It USA
Published by Artistic Pursuits Inc. www.artisticpursuits.com
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