Week 10 Visual Arts 3

Visual Arts 3: Encouraging Art Dialogue

This week, we looked at the different approaches to taking to children about their art and encouraging art dialogue. Robert Schirrmacher in Art and Creative Development for Young Children (1998) has identified six of the most common approaches used by adults to respond to children’s art, and in class we discussed how some are not suitable:

1. Complimentary

2. Judgmental

3. Valuing

4. Questioning

5. Probing

6. Correcting (Ewing & Gibson, R., 2011, pp. 136-137)

We found that teachers should not use these approaches which had negative effects on students’thinking and creating processes. Instead of those useless approaches, there were more questions and comments should be provided by teachers focused on:

The elements of design (Ewing & Gibson, R., pp.138-139):

l Line

l Shape

l Size

l Value

l Texture

l Colour

The principles of design (Ewing & Gibson, R., pp.139-140):

l Repetition

l Balance

l Rhythm

l Harmony

l Contrast

l Gradation

l Movement

l Emphasis

l Proportion

l Unity

Then for each group, Robyn provided us a piece of children’s paintings. As preserved teachers, we were required to ask students some appropriate questions based on the elements and principles of design, such as “How did you use different colours to make the patterns?” and “How did you use the colour you did in your painting to form unity?” These questions would engage students to think deeper about their artworks and the knowledge they have used unconsciously in the process of creating.

In the next section we participated in a painting activity and the uses of colours. Like what we did in last semester, but this time instead of dividing a piece of paper into 4 sections and only using a pair of complimentary colours, we painted monochromic, neutral, warm or cold and complimentary colours in the four sections. This activity was the one I engaged the most in this semester since Visual Arts is concerned with ‘creative manifestations of the human imagination’ (Lynn, 2002, p.7; Ewing & Gibson, R., 2011, p.130). While creating and expressing students’ own ideas in paintings, it was also a process of comprehension the elements and principles of design. My work can be view
below.

References:

Gibson, R. & Ewing, R. (2011). Transforming the curriculum through the Arts. Palgrave Macmillan: Melbourne.