Art class: Elements

When the "co-op" mothers knew that I have some knowledge of art, they were very keen for me to teach the children on a regular basis.  The timing ties in well with the activities that Tiger participates in with them so I agreed to take it on, both as a service to the group that we have become very fond of as well as for us to expand our homeschooling social network.

The little art class has about 20 children, ranging from 5 to 10 years old.  Tiger attends the class too (hence we are taking a break from our Artist Study at home).  We meet each week to learn about the elements of art in a structured way -- with a mix of theory, demonstrations, and practical activities.

Since the children have varied degrees of prior exposure to art, I decided to start the first session with them by leveling off everyone's expectations (of themselves and of what the class is about) by introducing what art is, how each artist is different, how there are many different ways to interpret and express art....  Essentially, what I hope to achieve with this class is:

• to introduce the children to the basic building blocks of visual art;
• to teach them basic techniques that they can apply for themselves at home;
• to help them express themselves; and
• to help them gain confidence in themselves through the process of making art.

After the initial prep-talk, we went down to business.  I introduced the five basic elements of art (line, colour, value, form, and texture) with a few pictorial examples of art work - which is a slight modification of picture study that I do at home with Tiger.  Then I demonstrated the elements using leaves by drawing, tracing, rubbing, and colouring.

The second half of the lesson was for the children to draw whatever they want using at least one of the elements.

This post is linked up to several blog hops, where you can see what other homeschoolers have been busy with.