Artist at Work

I absolutely LOVE children's art and watching each child's developmental progression as she journeys from scribbling to representational drawing. Even the same child fascinates me as her styles change in respect to the orientation of the paper and the materials used. For instance, if I hang paper on the easel to paint, her style is completely different from when I lay the paper on a table to paint. Her (I have only had girls for months now, so please forgive the feminine gender bias. This will change when I again have little boys.) paintings differ dramatically from drawings with color pens as well as the watercolor pens from work with crayons. When I give a Sharpie pen the children add more details and draw images that are recognizable to me as an adult.

The children hate drawing with crayons. They are used to the easy slide of watercolor pens, that take no effort at all to make scribbles. I regret this because using crayons works the hand muscles and get them ready for other skills such as writing and cutting. Besides, I have fond, meditative memories of coloring on rainy days with my own children. Crayons are wonderful for creating different shades of the same color. The red crayon creates shades from pink to dark red. I remember outlining images first before coloring them. One can get lost in the act of coloring a picture. No thoughts, just the movement of the crayon, adding just the perfect amount of pressure to attain the desired shade. The only decisions one need make is choosing the color and shade for each image.

The orange picture is an example of a number of skills children learn by the time kindergarten rolls around for them. Skills they learn through play, by having free access to materials and choosing their project, not by being "taught." Kenna did this. The paper was already cut into this shape but Kenna drew inside and was able to imitate the shape exactly. Then she drew the figure inside. When she finished the drawing she chose her favorite scissors and cut all the way around the outside of the line she drew. You can see that she had control over the lines she wanted to draw as well as the scissors. This is pre-writing in action. She worked on this project for more than a half hour, planning what she would do then going for it. When she told me the story about her picture, that it was her new puppy, Little Man, inside his cage ~ his crate ~ she reviewed what she had done. This too is a valuable skill. Planning, executing and reviewing.