Friday, September 12, 2008

The Primary

I love going to the primary school friday evenings. Its a perfect chance for me to experiment with different ideas with a group small enough that I can monitor whether things are going well or not. When we were talking about what my role would be at the primary school, the head of Creative Arts at the primary school told me that she wanted the students to get more exposure to art history; so I did a wee lesson inspired by Picasso. I simplified it as much as I could for the 7 and 8 year olds, explaining that Picasso often liked to change the normal shape of things. I helped them think abstractly by having them start out by drawing squiggly puddle shapes. Once they had their shape, I asked them to see what kinds of images they thought there puddle resembled. It was a lot like finding pictures in the clouds. One girl saw an elephant or a dog; one creative little boy saw an elk, and another let his emotions go totally wild, and he ended up with a bunny that had chicken pocks. After they filled in and colored their puddles to look like animals, they cut them and set them aside. Then I had them glue angular shapes of colored paper onto a page in any kind of pattern and style they wanted. This was the background onto which they pasted their puddle-animals. I showed them Picasso's artwork and asked them what shapes they noticed. I was delighted when they said that they saw squares and rectangles. (This, I thought , was the a tiny introduction to cubism.)

When the little experimental lesson was done, I wrote "Picasso's elephant," "Picasso's Elk," and "Picasso's bunny" on their papers, explaining that if they ever get curious about the artist we talked about, they could look on their papers for the name.

I got worried half way in that this lesson could be a disaster and that parents would see squiggly animals and think, "my child is getting worse at art!" However, all fears were wiped away when one of my wee students looked up from coloring her "Picasso's Crocodile" and said, "I am having so much fun!"

That made my day. :)

Her crocodile was indeed quite nice. :)

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