Teaching Kiddo Drawing and Painting

How does one prepare for the unpredictable nature of 4-6 year olds? By being as prepared as possible I suppose! I am going to teach foundation drawing and painting starting next week. It’s 1 class a week for 4 weeks straight, a break, then and new group of kids of the same age. I went and talked to the education director about direction and ciriculum, expectations for learning, class size, exercises, and class structures. I feel I have a pretty good handle on how things should go, but one never knows. 

{these are some sketches I did at the last ames c.art drawing group meeting; I need some freaking figure drawing practice, granted it’s a statue, but still, tisk tisk}

That is the thing that is so exciting and panic filling about teaching a group of young kids. Though I do not like Rush in general, I do like the phrase “skulls of mush” it’s pretty true. For instance, we are going to start with studio ediquette: keeping your tools in good working order, not slopping paint on the person next to you, studio safety (don’t eat the glue), and other fun things like that. 

I think we might start with some exercises on line and textures, squiggles and dots so to speak. Then make a larger drawing that we will then paint over. 

I found some pretty interesting lesson plans about using famous works to inspire the students – like showing/talking about Van Gogh’s painting of the bedroom and have them imagine sitting on the bed and drawing what the rest of the room will look like. {link}

There is also one for Miro that I thought was pretty interesting. It focuses on the use of contrast. Kiddos start out by drawing on a black sheet of paper and then work with oil pastels to create contrast. Then they use white tempra paint to further the contrast, high lighting just a few parts. I thought on a smaller scale I Might be able to squeeze it into one class period, but I’m not sure, that’s a lot for one hour. Maybe it’s something we could start one class and finish the next. {link} 

I am also starting a cross stitching class next week at the Workspace which is sure to be a hoot. I think that’s going to be pretty fun!

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Tags: children, class, drawing, kids, painting, teaching