Kids and Art

Today I got to do one of my most favorite things. I got to do art with twenty 1st graders - and I don't mean just a craft project, but ART.

I am part of a wonderful association of volunteer parents in our school district, who bring art education and hands-on art experiences into the classrooms. We have a well developed curriculum which guides us to teach age-appropriate "concepts" of art, as well as introducing children to works of a wide variety of artists through viewing of fine art prints.

Today I taught 6- and 7-year-olds about the concept of "line". We talked about vertical lines, horizontal lines, diagonal lines and curved lines - about what they are and what they show us in art. We talked about the imaginary lines between peoples eyes when they are looking at each other, and how that imaginary line draws our eyes through a painting. We looked at paintings by Rousseau, van Gogh, and Renoir. We also looked at paintings by Japanese artists Ando Hiroshige and Katsushika Hokusai, and by the Native American painter Blackbear Bosin.

Does it get much better than seeing a classroom full of 1st grade kids begging to tell you how viewing van Gogh's "Starry Night" makes them feel? I don't think so.

Then, after talking about lines and looking at great art prints, we made our own art. Line-drawing block prints made by drawing simple line shapes with blunt pencils into the flat circles of foam (cut from the bottom part of foam paper plates). The only requirements that we gave the kids was that they draw something that's living (animal or plant) and that they try to use the whole space. When their drawings were done, adult helpers helped them to roll block printing ink onto their foam circles, and we pressed paper down over them to make prints.

Every child's prints were beautiful - and some of them were just stunning. I hope that every child left there today feeling that they were artists, that making art was something that they can do. I hope their eyes shine and their hearts sing when they get to take their parents through the art show that we will put on at the end of the year, featuring their art.

I'm writing this as much to leave a reminder to myself that this is what all the work is for, as to share it with you. Sometimes I get overwhelmed and frustrated at the amount of time that I spend volunteering. Rounding up parents to help with the projects, going over and over the curriculum so that I can learn the material well enough to share it successfully with the children (my education was in computers, not art!), attending board meetings and helping organize people and stuff... It makes my head swim, and I'm not very good at that kind of organizational stuff, I procrastinate too much. But the need is always so great, and after I spend an afternoon in a classroom like I did today - it all seems worth it. Though I could tell you some interesting stories about 3rd grade boys and their need to put something bloody in every piece of art they do...