My brother asked me recently to spend a little while teaching his older daughter how to paint. She is very interested in art, and got a treasure-trove of art supplies for her birthday - one of those studio-in-a-box sets, with 3 kinds of paint and 2 kinds of pastels and 3 kinds of pencils, and brushes, palettes, an easel, and so on. Since there is no real arts education on school anymore, and I have acquired a few skills over the years, I was recruited to be a teacher for a day.
To prepare for the lesson, I looked for books to give ideas in teaching a few art basics to kids. What I found was disappointing and disheartening. It seems that a good 99% of kids' art-instruction books consist of "Draw Manga" and "Draw Cartoons" and "Draw Fairies and Dragons". The other 1%... well, I never found the other 1%. I got a used copy of First Steps: Drawing and Sketching, by Cathy Johnson, published by North Light Books. It is an excellent book, but assumes a level of skill, even for a beginner, that is way over a 9-year-old's head.
What to do? I want to get Caitlin to both exercise her imagination and learn observational skills, and learn how to use her supplies to the best advantage - that being giving her inspiration, learning and fun. Where is the book that tells how to do this? I don't think the best way to learn how to draw is by copying cartoon characters out of a book.
Children are smarter than they are given credit for. Why must their first real instruction in fine arts be to copy simple line drawings? Older beginning art students are given lessons in fundamentals such as observation and sketching. Why shouldn't children be given the same initiation into art?
One thing an artist must have is a long attention span and a lot of self-discipline, and as these things are not exactly any child's strong point, these have to be learned and practiced along with art techniques. I want to come up with something that is neither childish nor complicated - something that will inspire her, and make her want to spend the time an energy learning, but nothing daunting that will lead to discouragement and disenchantment with art. Like many children, Caitlin has a full schedule - school, lessons, various "camps", play-dates and sleepovers galore. She has little time to devote to something as solitary and disciplined as art.
So, I am writing an art instruction "book" for Caitlin. I start off with "What Is Art?", and set out some basic rules, including "be patient" and "have fun". I tell about different media, and materials, and tools, and how to care for equipment such as brushes. I briefly describe some basic color theory, and want to write a page or two on simple perspective.
I will next tell about how to observe. Every kid wants to draw an apple as a red circle with a stem on top, every tree as a green cloud full of red apples on a straight brown trunk, every bird as a "M" in the sky. Clouds - white cotton balls. Water - always blue. While she was here, I gave Caitlin an apple to draw, and she promptly drew a circle with a stem - despite the actual apple not looking like that. So, I want to tell her that learning to observe - learning to really see - is the most important thing. Does the apple have a stem, or not? Is it round, or knobby? Does it have bruises or scars? I want to instruct her to spend a fair bit of time looking at what she wants to draw before she sets pencil to paper, and then learn how to draw what she sees.
I want to then tell about, describe and demonstrate some simple techniques for using basic media - drawing with pencil, making a watercolor painting, making a drawing with pastels, oil pastels, colored pencils, etc. For subjects I will use common, easy-to-draw things like a coffee mug, a banana, a nectarine. I'll make the drawings and paintings, photographing each step as I describe it so she will be able to see how I depict shadows, layer colors, etc.
Later on, when she has a better grip on basic drawing and watercolor painting, I will help her explore acrylic painting, and then oil painting. I want to do these things in steps not only out of concern for her - I don't want her to be overloaded - but out of concern for her parent's carpeting. A palette full of paint, when dropped, will fall wet-side-down, of course, and I am envisioning a lovely, permanent, abstract pattern of many colors of acrylic paints on their pale-beige carpet. Yikes!
The book won't be too much of a reach for a kid, I don't think. I use simple language, but don't talk down to her and patronize her; kids know when they're being patronized, and appreciate respect, not just effusive praise. When an adult hunkers down and says, "Oh my, what a GOOD PAINTING! Aren't you WONDERFUL!", a child looks askance (I know I did, when I was a kid). A quieter, more sincere praise is more appreciated.
Once she has a grip on draftsmanship, then she can take off on flights of fancy. No matter what kind of art she grows into, she will have a grounding in some essential skills. As she grows up, and her ideas and thoughts expand and mature with experience, she will have basics - drafting, color theory, perspective, and knowing how each type of media behaves. Even if she doesn't choose to go into art, she will have this creative outlet as a pastime, a way to relax, express herself. That's all I want for her - to know about and appreciate the process of creating artwork, so she will have a broader understanding of this essential part of human nature.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
2011 Officially Sick of Winter Day
The storm on Friday was a wild one. While I did manage to get to work (Mary went with me, and drove, since such road conditions were, as she put it, "a piece of cake" after her 21 years in the Northeast Kingdom), the snow fell harder and harder, and was predicted to continue throughout the day. We closed at noon, after a jangled FedEx man brought a load of boxes and stories of getting stuck, and seeing cars and trucks off the road. It had taken nearly an hour to get to Manchester (we even passed a big tour bus which was stuck facing uphill in the downhill lane on the mountain road), but took a little less than that to get home - about 40 minutes. I've driven in worse.
Mary tried to get the car into the garage on Friday, but the snow was deep in the yard, and she could neither drive nor back up to the garage. After whumping into snowbanks a few times, she decided to surrender to the elements, and park in the open. We came in and put on dry warm things, and watched baseball (the 2004 ALCS Game 6, on DVD) all afternoon, and along about 3,30pm, the snow stopped, the clouds cracked, and the sun tried to shine, and I felt as if I was playing hooky.
Yesterday was a bright, sunny day, but breezy and cold. The wind pulled streamers of snow from the trees and sculpted drifts around the car. After breakfast I shoveled a path to and around the car, scraped the snow and ice from the windows, and shoveled again. Mary was on her way home, meeting with Ken in White River Junction, and I had to make a path down which we could lug all her stuff.
We got on the road at about noon, and the traveling was fine. The strengthening sun melted the last of the snow on the road, and we even turned the heater down in the car. But there is where the trouble began.
My boots were soaked. As long as I was moving around, I didn't notice, but sitting still, my feet cooled off, and my boots got cold.... and then my feet got cold.
There's nothing quite like the misery of cold, wet feet. Everyone gets chilly now and then, but my feet were COLD. Cold enough to hurt. Not frostbite-cold, but chilblains-cold. Cold feet make me unhappy, cranky, crabby, sad. Passing back through Chester late in the afternoon, I stopped at Linda's, and she rescued me with warm, dry socks and a cup of hot tea, and I felt the crankiness melting away as my cold, wet feet tingled with warmth.
Of course, I did have to put on the wet boots again and drive the final leg home, and when I got here, my feet were once again cold and unhappy. I could not park in the garage, of course; I gunned it through the as yet unplowed snow and slewed the car to an angled halt just in front of the garage, and didn't even try to get it inside. I know futility when I see it. So I slogged into the house, scattering snow onto the floor, and divested myself of the offending footwear.
I woke this morning to steady snowfall, piling up on top of Friday's snow. Though it is ending as I write this, and should be partly sunny this afternoon, tomorrow is going to bring yet another storm, this time with a mix of snow, sleet, ice and rain. The pretty fluff on the ground today will turn to translucent grayish slop, and then freeze to an iron-like crust.
I've had enough. This winter has been so long, and so hard, and I am SO ready for the end of it. Though yesterday was a pretty day, with plumes of windblown snow sparkling against a pure blue sky, it was the breaking point. The cold feet - that was the last straw. I've had enough.
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