Yesterday, in our Fine Arts class, Willow had us create observational art. As I felt the pressure lift off myself I noticed a few people got tense when asked to draw (tense like I get when I'm asked to role play, sing, or dance--that's right, 3 out of the 4 parts of fine arts fill me with fear!). As we worked through the steps I observed that even those who are uncomfortable drawing were engaged and quite successful. This made me think about how we are creating a safety net for students to practice the SKILL of drawing--sometimes just getting comfortable putting pen to paper is the biggest hurdle, I think! So how can we apply this same safety net to the other areas in the Fine Arts curriculum? Can we break down the process of drama or dance in a similar way? Would it feel as safe? Or are those who are uncomfortable in these areas too afraid of their own bodies or their own voices making "art" as opposed to the art left behind on an external sheet of paper?
When I was in high school, all I really did was observational drawing. When we drew still life or modelled portraits, I was praised by my art teacher for this skill (I was awarded top art student in the junior high). However, in grade 11, when I created a series of observational pen or pencil drawings from photographs, my art teacher at the high school compared me to nothing better than a "human photocopier"--and he meant this in a highly insulting way--and gave me a C+....apparently I lacked creativity. Insulted I was. Uncreative I felt. (Did that sound like Yoda to anyone else?) It's hard to get over being told you are uncreative. It felt as though any skill I had honed was irrelevant. I tried to draw without something to observe but suddenly all I could draw was cartoony, sloppy doodles that easily could have passed as pictionary drawings (I'm the worst pictionary partner by the way!)! Eventually, if I were to ever enjoy art again, I had to come to the conclusion that I probably won't be much more than an observational artist...(can I refer to myself as an artist if it's observational? my grade 11 art teacher would likely say no).
Here are some of my observational drawings...(the funniest thing to me is that my maiden name is on all of these...the saddest thing is seeing that the date says 1991-1993! haha
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| Jim Morrison, Cover of the Rolling Stones Magazine, pencil |
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| Pencil crayon sketch, from a water color instructional text? |
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| Pencil Sketch |
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| Pencil sketch from a magazine ad |
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Pencil sketch from magazine ad
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Wow Laura! Those are incredible! I especially like the second one, with the colour. Interesting observation that it's been so long since you did all of these--how come?
ReplyDeleteThanks Andrea...just no time :( However, my interests also changed...when I had my children I got in to photographing them and scrapbooking!
DeleteAnd I am sure that it was no help that your teacher had insulted your skill. It was not YOU who lacked creativity - you had amazing technical skill that could have branched out into greater freedom if you had felt it worth the risk. As I have said so many times, if I could change one thing in education it would be for teachers to quit marking things wrong - or giving low grades because of what is lacking - but rather emphasize how to build on existing strengths to add the missing component.
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